Duo: Rolex Daytona 6269 & 6270
Only a few people – among whom John Mayer – have ever held these lavish executions side by side. You can probably imagine how happy and proud we are that we have succeeded to source this exceedingly rare pair for a dear client and friend of us.
Did you know that this deal was the beginning of Collectors Gallery?
Background
In the fall of 2021, I was still working at Amsterdam Vintage Watches. My current business partner was an independent watch dealer and friend of mine back then. We closed deals together in Amsterdam because he had access to nice watches. He had great connections in New York and Dubai.
Because the clientele of Amsterdam Vintage Watches was evolving, we were growing and so the demand for rare watches increased. That year, Amsterdam Vintage Watches already closed some deals on rare watches like the Rolex Daytona reference 6264 'John Player Special Cherry', a Patek Philippe Grand Complications reference 5004P and a Rolex Day-Date reference 18239 'Bloodstone'. The friend that I mentioned earlier (hereafter also referred to as 'A.') had access to nice vintage watches like Audemars Piguet Royal Oaks and Perpetual Calendars, and Patek Philippe Aquanauts (5065, 5066), but no 'heavy hitters' like the before mentioned watches. We primarily did the common sports models like '90s Submariners, GMT-Masters and Daytona's.
However, in the end of 2021 he surprised us - and probably himself too. He was riding his bicycle on De Overtoom - a nice, big street in Amsterdam full of restaurants, cafés and shops - when he got a call from his contact in New York. His contact asked about us (Amsterdam Vintage Watches) as he had noticed we were dealing in some very special watches lately.
I think that what followed made him fall of his bicycle. His guy from New York had a reference 6269 and he wanted to know whether we had a client for it! We only knew the 6269 and 6270 from Hodinkee's 'Talking Watches' video with John Mayer.
We only knew the 6269 and 6270 from Hodinkee's 'Talking Watches' video with John Mayer.
The deal
Getting it offered is special, but it doesn't mean anything. The question was whether we were able to sell it?
We had one client in mind who had started collecting rare Daytona's. He had just moved to Dubai. We decided to pay him a visit and during dinner we told him we had access to a 6269. He was impressed, but not really interested. The deal didn't fly, so we flew back to Amsterdam to go on with our daily business.
Months passed by until we got a phone call from our client. He told us he still didn't want the 6269. However, he was so pleasantly surprised that we could get our hands on a special watch like this, that it made him wonder whether we could get the other - as he said: "better" - half of the pair.
"Yes!" we said without thinking. "I want it." he replied firmly.
I contacted A. to ask whether his guy from New York knew where to find a 6270 (the other half).
A couple of weeks later, the New York guy called us back. He knew a dealer in Dubai (out of all the places) who had a 6270. Apparently, this dealer was also a good contact of my friend A. He made a call to discuss the deal. Unfortunately, the Dubai dealer didn't want to let it go for the moment.
As the months went by, our client got increasingly tempted by the 6269. He started appreciating this reference more and more, but was still waiting for the 6270. My friend A. still tried to convince the Dubai dealer to sell the 6270.
Eventually, our client invited us for dinner in Dubai to discuss a potential deal for the 6269. We had dinner with our client, while A. was in Dubai as well having dinner with the 6270 dealer. We were about to finalise the 6269 deal when I received a text message from my A.:
"Brother, we can get the 6270."
I did not know what to do or to say, so I excused myself for a minute to make a phone call, discussed the details with my friend, thought deeply and went back to the table. My client was finally convinced to take the 6269 and he was about to shake hands on it and now I had to make things complicated again.
I shared the news with him and explained him all details. I wasn't sure what response to expect; now that both options were available he could refrain from the deal and rethink his choice; as he initially liked the 6270 more, he could take this one instead of the 6269; or he could - since he had finally made up his mind - go for the 6269 and leave the 6270. It was silent for a minute.
You know what he said?
"I take them both."
That's how we sold the most exclusive pair of Daytona's while having dinner in an Indian restaurant in Dubai.
Start of Collectors Gallery
By closing this deal in Dubai we got to understand how pleasant it is to do business and live here. This place has such a huge potential! First of all, there is a big community of collectors and people who like watches. Many of them focus on modern pieces and not so many on vintage yet. We experienced how easy it was to do business here. We witnessed the safety - Dubai has very low crime rates - and we loved it. In Amsterdam you can't sit at a restaurant with a table full of watches, but in Dubai it's the natural order of things. Furthermore, the government here is very supportive for entrepreneurs and the people really want to do business and want you to do business. We decided to open up a company here. I can't go into the specifics of this deal, but we could arrange everything in such a way that this sale provided us with the initial capital to start Collectors Gallery.
The watches
Rolex marketed the Daytona as a tool watch so it was debuted in steel. In the 80s, after more than two decades of production, this model still received little love and most of them languished in dealer displays for years. Hence, it was quite an unexpected move from Rolex to launch two new Daytona references that each demanded a retail price many times the price of a regular Daytona – in the case of 6270 even twenty times greater than a normal gold Daytona.
The 6269 and 6270 were the first and only bejeweled Valjoux Daytona’s that saw the light of day. The 6269 has an 18k gold bezel adorned with a whopping 44 brilliant-cut diamonds and the 6270 has 28 baguette-cut diamonds on the bezel. Contrary to popular believe, the gem-set dial isn’t inherent to either the 6269 or the 6270. Scarcely a regular champagne or black dial was mounted. Yet, the pave dial with its nearly 240 diamonds (!) still looks the best. A cool detail: as the diamonds were set by hand there are small inconsistencies and they’re often not 100% identical. The hour markers are brilliant cut sapphires. The brand and model-name are applied on cartouches with black paint. These dials are one of the few during Rolex’ entire production run where it lacks a coronet at the 12 and a Swiss signing at 6. The totalizers are champagne colored with black text for the 6269 and blue with gold text for the 6270. The hands are monochrome and closed (without luminous material like the dial) with a black lacquered stripe in the center.
More often than once, the Daytona is associated with the Oyster bracelet. Neither the 6269 nor the 6270 were in the catalogue and no official ads have surfaced, so it is impossible to tell what bracelet Rolex had in mind for these two references. Yet, there are plenty of examples where the customers’ preference of a different configuration was granted. A Jubilee was the best alternative for an Oyster bracelet as a standard President bracelet doesn’t fit between the 19mm lug-width. However, we know of the existence of a 6270 with a President bracelet with diamond centre links. This bracelet has its own bracelet code and was made by Rolex on request for a client.
Inside the 37.5 mm measuring Oyster case we find a chronometer certified caliber 727. Although it was the best version of the caliber 72 that was used for the Rolex Cosmograph, it still was a manual winding caliber. Often this is mentioned as one of the reasons they weren’t selling that well as most people associated and enjoyed Rolex with automatic winding mechanism instead.
We can only guess about the production numbers of the 6269, but we assume it’s slightly more than twenty, which probably is the amount of 6270’s that were produced. However, almost nothing about these references is common knowledge and the scarce information that has been recovered is usually only shared between the high-ranking connoisseurs, which also adds to the charm of these elusive models.
Back in the day, you could have bought a proper house of the historic retail price. The current market value of this duo will get you quite a bit more. When Christies hammered close to a million for a 6270 in 2014, people were mocking the buyer, but in the past 7 years a lot has changed as quite some attention shifted towards gem set tool watches. This translated in many current releases by Rolex like the ‘Rainbow Daytona’ and ‘Eye of the Tiger’. Not only is such a blingy sports model finally accepted, but it has also become the target for many collectors.
The absolute grail for them being the 6269 and the 6270.
