Reference:118235

Day-Date → 118235

The 118235 is the Everose Day-Date 36, the rose-gold President of the 6-digit era. Everose is Rolex's exclusive pink-gold alloy, introduced in 2005 and formulated to hold its colour where ordinary rose gold fades, and the 118235 is the fluted-bezel Day-Date that wears it. It is the warm-metal counterpart to the yellow-gold 118238, on the same 36mm case and caliber 3155, and it is most associated with the chocolate-brown dial that became the signature Everose President. It ran until about 2019, when the caliber-3255 Day-Date 36 replaced it.

Rolex Day-Date 36 118235 in Everose gold — the fluted Everose bezel and the chocolate-brown dial that is the reference's signature.

Core facts

detail	value
reference	118235
family	Day-Date (Day-Date 36, 6-digit)
production	2000 to about 2019 — conventional 18k pink gold early, Everose (as 118235F) from the mid-2000s
movement	caliber 3155, 31 jewels, 28,800 vph, ~48h, double quickset, Parachrom hairspring, COSC
case	36mm 18k Everose gold
crystal	sapphire
bezel	fluted
bracelet	Everose President with concealed Crownclasp, solid links
dial	chocolate/brown (signature), sundust, champagne, ivory, rhodium, mother-of-pearl, meteorite, diamond-set
crown	Twinlock screw-down
metal	Everose — Rolex's exclusive fade-resistant 18k pink gold (introduced 2005)
siblings	118238 (yellow gold), 118239 (white gold); 118205 (smooth Everose), 118135 (leather-strap Everose)
successor	128235 (Day-Date 36, caliber 3255, from 2019)

Where it sits in the line

The 118235 is the Everose member of the 6-digit Day-Date 36, the generation that from 2000 gave the President broader lugs, solid links and a concealed Crownclasp. The 118238 is the yellow-gold fluted volume reference, the 118239 the white gold, and the 118235 the Everose. The metal is the story: Everose is Rolex's in-house pink-gold alloy, cast in its own foundry and introduced in 2005, formulated to arrest the copper fade that dulls ordinary rose gold over time. The 118235 is the fluted Everose; the smooth-bezel Everose is the 118205 and the leather-strap Everose the 118135. It ran until about 2019, when the caliber-3255 Day-Date 36, the 128235, took over.

Production outline

The 118235 has occupied the rose-gold slot of the 6-digit Day-Date 36 since 2000, and for its first years it was cast in conventional 18k pink gold; pink-gold examples dated 2000 to 2004 appear in the auction record. Everose arrived in 2005, and the Everose examples carry the 118235F suffix, catalogued from about 2007. It ran to about 2019. The timing of the movement change is sometimes given as 2015, but that conflates the 36mm Day-Date with the Day-Date 40, the 40mm model that replaced the 41mm Day-Date II in 2015 and took the caliber 3255 that year; the 36mm 118235 stayed on the caliber 3155 until the 6-digit 128235 replaced it in 2019. No Rolex production figure has surfaced. The 118235 is a liquid modern reference, its interest concentrated in the metal and the dial.

Movement notes

The 118235 runs the caliber 3155, the double-quickset Day-Date movement: 31 jewels, 28,800 vph, a roughly 48-hour reserve and COSC certification, with both the day and the date set from the crown. Later production carries the Parachrom hairspring that Rolex rolled across the line from around 2005. It is the same movement as the yellow-gold 118238; the Everose case and the chocolate dial are what set the 118235 apart, not the calibre. The Reference:Movements page holds the caliber lineage, and the 118238 entry covers the 3155 in detail.

Dial map

A gem-set chocolate dial — diamond markers and ruby baguettes on the warm Everose ground, a variant of the signature chocolate face.

The chocolate-brown dial is the signature of the Everose Day-Date, the pairing that defines the reference: a warm sunburst brown against the pink gold, with applied baton markers. Beyond it the 118235 was offered in sundust, champagne, ivory, rhodium and black, in mother-of-pearl and meteorite, and in diamond-set and gem-set versions, including chocolate dials with diamond markers and ruby baguettes. The Everose metal flatters the warmer dials in particular, which is why the chocolate and sundust faces are the ones most associated with the reference. The deep dial taxonomy that spans the President line sits on the 1803 entry.

Case, bezel, crystal, and crown

The case is the 36mm Everose Oyster of the 6-digit Day-Date, with the broader lugs of the generation, a sapphire crystal and Cyclops, a Twinlock screw-down crown and a screw-down caseback. The bezel is fluted, the Day-Date signature, here in Everose. The case is solid Everose gold; the alloy's stability is the practical point of the reference, since it holds its pink tone where older rose-gold Rolexes can dull.

Bracelets, end links, and clasps

The 118235 wears the Everose President bracelet, the three-piece semi-circular-link bracelet with the concealed Crownclasp and the solid links of the 6-digit era, heavier and more rigid than the 5-digit bracelets. As with any President, a clasp date code dates the bracelet, which may be older or newer than the head, and the cross-family detail sits on Reference:Bracelets.

Special branches

Everose, the fade-resistant rose gold

The reason the 118235 exists is the metal. Ordinary rose-gold alloys lose their pink over time as the copper in them oxidises, and Everose is formulated to hold its colour. What produces that stability is disputed: Rolex's own materials page gives the alloy as at least 75% gold and 20% copper with palladium and indium and calls the exact formula a secret, while the published collector literature credits a small platinum addition. Rolex casts it in its own foundry and introduced it in 2005, and the Day-Date is one of the references it most defines. On the 118235 the warm metal and the warm dials, chocolate above all, are the whole appeal.

The chocolate dial

The chocolate-brown dial is the configuration most tied to the Everose Day-Date, in plain baton-marker form and in gem-set versions with diamond markers and ruby baguettes. It is the pairing that reads as Everose on sight, the way the ice-blue dial reads as platinum, and it carries the strongest following on the reference.

Market

The 118235 is a liquid modern reference that trades through the dealer and certified-pre-owned market and rarely reaches the catalogued auctions; it does not generate headline auction lots, and the major houses route Everose Day-Dates through private sale, seldom under the hammer. The one auction-house example that surfaces is an Antiquorum rosé diamond-dial 118235, estimated around CHF 17,000–21,000. On the secondary market a standard Everose 118235 sits roughly in the USD 30,000–50,000 range, a slight premium over the yellow-gold 118238 on the strength of the rose metal, with diamond-set and special dials, meteorite and the gem-set chocolate, reaching higher.

Related references

• Day-Date 218206 — 2008–2015
• Day-Date 218238 — 2008–2015
• Day-Date 118208 — 2000–2019
• Day-Date 118238 — 2000–2019
• Day-Date 118138 — 2013–2019
• Day-Date 18208 — 1988–2000

See also the Day-Date family index, movement reference, bracelet & clasp guide, and serial numbers by year.

Sources

• The Vintage Rolex Field Manual — Colin A. White, Morning Tundra
• "Everose - Materials, Watchmaking Features", Rolex
• Antiquorum, "Rolex Ref. 118235 Day-Date 36, 18k Everose gold with rosé diamond-set dial — Antiquorum", Antiquorum
• The 1916 Company editorial, "Rolex Certified Pre-Owned: a Day-Date Ref. 118235F-0093 with chocolate dial", The 1916 Company
• WatchBase, "Rolex Day-Date 118235 — reference data", WatchBase
• WatchBase, "Rolex caliber 3155 (registry page)", WatchBase
• "What is Rolex Everose Gold? A Complete Guide", Millenary Watches
• Monochrome editorial, "In-Depth: The History of the Rolex Day-Date, The Presidential Watch", Monochrome Watches
• Italian Watch Spotter editorial, "The History of the Rolex Day-Date", Italian Watch Spotter
• Sotheby's editorial, "The Rolex Day-Date: A Complete Collector's Guide", Sotheby's
• Fratello editorial, "Exploring Evergreens: The Rolex Day-Date 18238", Fratello Watches
• Bob's Watches, "Rolex President Day-Date Everose Gold 118235, chocolate dial", Bob's Watches