October 2017
Paul Newman's Own Rolex Daytona — $17.75 Million and a Story Worth Telling
The Rolex Daytona Reference 6239 that once belonged to actor and racing driver Paul Newman sold at Phillips in New York on 26 October 2017 for US$17.75 million, becoming the most expensive wristwatch and the most expensive Rolex ever sold at auction. The watch had been gifted to Newman by his wife, Joanne Woodward, in the late 1960s, and its engraved caseback bears a personal inscription that helped authenticate it.
The story of the Paul Newman Daytona is, in many ways, the story of how provenance transforms value. The Reference 6239 Cosmograph Daytona — with its exotic 'Paul Newman' dial featuring art-deco numerals and contrasting sub-dials — was not a commercial success when it was released in the 1960s. Rolex made relatively few, and they sat in display cases. What changed everything was Paul Newman: photographed wearing the watch at racetracks throughout the 1970s and 1980s, he lent the model a cool that no advertising campaign could have manufactured. The specific watch sold in 2017 was Newman's own — the one Joanne Woodward gave him, engraved on the caseback with 'Drive Very Slowly, Joanne.' After decades of speculation about its whereabouts (Newman had given it to his daughter's boyfriend in the 1980s, and it had remained out of public view), its appearance at Phillips was a genuine event. The bidding opened at US$1 million, jumped to US$10 million within seconds, and climbed to a final US$17.75 million. The record for a Rolex still stands — a testament to the enduring power of a good story attached to a good watch.