50th Anniversary Daytona 116506; Two Year Review

[HogwldFLTR]

It's almost two years to the day from when I traded an 18 watch collection for this piece. For the skeptics who only see this piece as comically pretentious it is clear they've no knowledge of watch collecting.

This is a great, durable, and under the radar watch. Clearly it's not a disposable low cost watch like most wear. Some of the attributes of Platinum as opposed to gold or stainelss steel are weight and durability through polishing. Platinum is amazingly dense and the feel on the wrist is like nothing else. It is heavier than almost any other watch made but wearing it, the weight surprisingly vanishes on the wrist in minutes.

After two years of wearing it in rotation with other watches in my collection, it has received its share of small scratches and light wear on the bracelet. The watch head itself has remained untouched to the naked eye. I had the bracelet touched up by the Authorized Dealer I obtained the watch from recently. I must say that there is no observable wear on the bracelet anymore. This is the nature of Platinum unlike other watch materials. The watch looks brand new. They are fully outhorized by Rolex to perform watch repairs and provide Rolex Authorized service cards.

Wearing the watch as a daily actually caused me some concern with respect to security. This concern was asuaged through insurance. At the time I took it out I chose to only insure it for what replacement cost in the secondary market was (coincidentally what I paid new for it). Since the secondary market pricing has increase, this year I will try to get it insured for 10K more or what the MSRP for the watch is.

Do I have any desire to trade the watch for other precious metal watches? The thought has crossed my mind and I actually investigated this due to the increasing value of the watch. The pricing on the secondary market has risen steeply in the last two years. It now sells for $20,000 more than for what I purchased mine. There is speculation about the 116506 being discontinued in the future. If so the value of the watch should significantly increase beyond what it already has. This is one of the reason I couldn't go though with a trade. It's stunning and once gone it would likely never again be obtainable for me.

OK, this is as honest a review as I can write. For the watch collectors reading this you'll likely already know much of what I've said. For those who are new to watch collecting recognize that for me and many other collectors this is one of the Rolex holy grails of watch collecting. As a footnote to the review, I wrote much of this as a review for Amazon, hence some of the framing. I hope those who are very experienced will let that go as they read. I must also add that this has proven to be the most accurate mechanical watch in my collection.