Robb Report: A Rolex Daytona Ref. 6239 With Nonluminous Dial and Hands

Journalists Paige Reddinger recently wrote for Robb Report’s Gift Guide ‘Robb Report: A Rolex Daytona Ref. 6239 With Nonluminous Dial and Hands’ offered by Wind Vintage.

Eric Wind of Wind Vintage is known for securing hard-to-find and highly collectible watches. Now he’s opening his coveted vault to offer one Robb Report reader a possibly unique 37 mm steel Rolex Daytona Ref. 6239. The horological cognoscenti may recognize a potentially one-of-a-kind Daytona as essentially unheard of.

In all other vintage models, the hands and hour markers glow in the dark, but this piece, circa 1966, doesn’t have a space for the typical tritium lume in the hands that others have, and though the dial does have space next to its hour markers, it lacks the tritium plots. This kind of quirky, tiny detail can increase a watch’s value—and Wind doesn’t think this was a production error. “Rolex made a small number of nonluminous tool watches in the 1950s and 1960s, most notably the Milgauss, designed for scientists and doctors working in environments such as nuclear plants,” he says. Radiation-sensitive equipment, such as Geiger counters, could be activated by the luminous material, and while there’s no proof that Rolex created this Daytona for a scientific environment, it certainly makes for a great story.

Read the full article below:

https://robbreport.com/style/watch-collector/rolex-daytona-6239-ref-1234780596/