Why We Love It
“This is gold, Mr. Bond. All my life, I have been in love with its color, its brilliance, its divine heaviness...”
If you, like Auric Goldfinger, have a taste for gold and want to feel its "divine heaviness" on your wrist, then look no further!
This piece, a Reference 18038 Day-Date was produced circa 1982 with a Spanish-language calendar, and features a gold on gold on gold tonality, including a crisp, flawless 18K yellow case with fluted bezel, gold tone dial with richly patinated Tritium plots and hands, and a matching hidden clasp bracelet. This 'five-digit' Neo-Vintage model combines the best of vintage (case dimensions, luminous material) with a single quickset movement and a magnified sapphire crystal.
When only a gold Rolex watch will do, this Day-Date is it!
The Day-Date Story
When you’ve got a good thing going, sometimes you just know.
Such is the case with the Rolex Day-Date. At the time of the Day-Date’s release in 1956, it was Rolex’s most complicated wristwatch: all previous attempts had failed to resonate with consumers.
But as soon as Rolex secured the patent in July of 1955, production of the Day-Date was rushed for a debut at the Basel Fair the following spring.
Although early Day-Dates were plagued by technical problems resulting from the complexity of the automatic movement with dual calendar function, those were soon resolved. After President Eisenhower sported one (a gift from the manufacture), its success was secured. The watch came to be known as the “President,” (due to the fact that several U.S. presidents since Eisenhower have worn one), and it certainly lives up to its dignified nickname.
For a brand that has built its reputation on its sports watches, it's perhaps unsurprising that the Rolex Day-Date is amongst the brand's best-sellers. True, the brand has always produced dress watches, but while the brand's more overt dress watch, the Cellini, often seems out of place among the brand's Oyster-cased offerings, the Day-Date is sturdy, solid, and at home alongside the Submariners and GMTs that make up the Oyster Perpetual collection.
Rolex has approached continual development of model as they do every other, making quiet improvements over the following decades, ensuring the Day-Date is worthy as the centerpiece of Rolex's Oyster line as horological technology evolves.
Whether a simple 36mm yellow gold piece or a Day-Date II 41mm Day-Date in platinum with a gem set dial, the Day-Date is internationally recognized as time timepiece of success and leadership, and of great taste.
