Reference:118239

Day-Date -> 118239

The 118239 is the white-gold Day-Date 36 of the 6-digit era. Same 36mm President case as the yellow-gold 118238, same fluted bezel, same caliber 3155, cut in 18k white gold instead. At arm's length it reads as steel, and that quietness is the whole appeal: a watch that weighs like gold and looks like nothing in particular until the fluting catches the light. Rolex catalogued it from 2000, on the President bracelet and on the Oyster, and gave it the widest dial range of any reference in the generation. Lapis lazuli, meteorite, mother-of-pearl, cherry lacquer and full pavé all sit in the same catalogue as plain silver and black.

Rolex Day-Date 36 118239 in 18k white gold — fluted bezel, white Roman dial, President bracelet.

Core facts

detail	value
reference	118239
family	Day-Date (Day-Date 36, 6-digit)
production	from 2000, through the 2010s to about 2019
movement	caliber 3155, 31 jewels, 28,800 vph, ~48h reserve, double quickset
case	36mm 18k white gold
crystal	sapphire
bezel	fluted
bracelet	President or Oyster
dial	silver, black, blue, cherry, white and grey Roman, silver "computer", mother-of-pearl, lapis lazuli, meteorite, diamond-set, paved
crown	Twinlock screw-down
siblings	118238 (yellow gold), 118235 (Everose), 118208 (yellow gold, smooth), 118206 (platinum, smooth), 118139 (white gold, leather strap)
predecessor	18239 (5-digit white gold)
successor	128239

Where it sits in the line

The 6-digit Day-Date 36 splits by metal and by bezel. The 118238 is the yellow-gold fluted volume reference, the 118235 the Everose, the 118208 the yellow-gold smooth, and the 118239 the white-gold fluted. White gold has always been the awkward member of the Day-Date family, because the one thing a President is supposed to do at a glance is announce itself, and white gold declines to. That has kept the 118239 out of the spotlight and made it the reference collectors reach for when they want the watch without the announcement.

Mechanically there is nothing to separate it from its siblings. The case, the caliber 3155, the double quickset and the Twinlock crown are shared across the generation, and the 118238 entry carries the full account of the caliber. What the 118239 has of its own is metal and dial. White gold takes a mirror polish differently from yellow, and it is the natural ground for the cool-toned dials, lapis and meteorite and pavé, that make up the more interesting half of the reference's catalogue.

Production outline

Rolex introduced the 118xxx series in 2000, and the work went into the bracelet and the clasp. The caliber 3155 carried over from the preceding 182xx references and the 36mm Oyster case stayed as it was, while the bracelet gained substance, the lugs were polished along their length, and the clasp was made more secure. Monochrome's history adds the detail that matters most on the wrist: the President bracelet moved from hollow links to solid, which accounts for most of the added weight, and the rehaut picked up the engraved ROLEX ROLEX ROLEX ring carrying the serial number.

The end of the run is less tidy than the start. Monochrome's Day-Date history closes the 118238, and with it the generation, at 2009. That date is hard to square with the same article's account of the caliber 3155 being re-regulated in 2015, from the COSC standard of −4/+6 seconds a day to Rolex's own Superlative Chronometer rating of −2/+2, a change that only means anything if 3155-powered Day-Dates were still being sold. The reference ran on through the 2010s until the caliber-3255 128239 took over the 36mm line, around 2019.

Movement notes

The 118239 runs the caliber 3155, the double-quickset Day-Date movement, with 31 jewels, a 28,800 vph beat and a reserve of roughly 48 hours. Day and date both index from the crown, which is the practical dividing line between this generation and the 4-digit references, where the only way to change either is to run the hands round. Monochrome describes the 3155 as a jewel count up from 27 to 31 over the outgoing 3055, with a double bridge for the escapement, and slightly slimmer despite the additions.

Two changes land mid-run. The blue Parachrom hairspring arrives across the Rolex catalogue from 2005, so late examples carry it and early ones do not. Then in 2015 Rolex re-regulated the 3155 to the Superlative Chronometer standard of −2/+2 seconds a day. A late 118239 is therefore a materially better timekeeper on paper than an early one, running the same caliber number. The caliber lineage sits on Reference:Movements.

Dial map

Meteorite dial with diamond hour markers — the crystalline banding runs differently on every example.

The dial range is the reason to care about this reference. Thirty-four configurations are catalogued for the 118239, running from plain lacquer to fully paved. The same dial menu appears against both bracelet options, so a buyer choosing the Oyster gave up nothing on the dial.

Lapis lazuli, the hardstone dial that suits white gold best.

dial	description	bracelets
silver	plain silvered ground, applied baton markers	President, Oyster
black	glossy black, applied batons	President, Oyster
blue	blue ground, applied batons	President, Oyster
cherry	cherry-red lacquer	President, Oyster
white Roman	white ground, applied Roman numerals	President, Oyster
grey Roman	grey ground, applied Roman numerals	President, Oyster
silver "computer"	silvered ground printed with the circuit-board motif, diamond markers	President, Oyster
mother-of-pearl	white, black, Oxford and carousel patterns	President, Oyster
lapis lazuli	deep-blue lapis hardstone, diamond markers	President, Oyster
meteorite	meteorite slice with crystalline banding, diamond markers	President, Oyster
diamond-set	silver or black grounds with diamond hour markers; one configuration pairs diamonds with emeralds	President, Oyster
paved	ground fully paved with diamonds, applied blue Arabic numerals	President, Oyster

The silver "computer" dial, printed with a circuit-board motif and set with diamond markers.

Two of these deserve singling out. The lapis is the hardstone that suits white gold best, because the metal stays out of the way and the stone does not have to fight a warm case for attention. The meteorite is the one that never repeats, since the crystalline banding is cut from a different part of the slice on every dial. The wider hardstone story across the Rolex catalogue is covered in Italian Watch Spotter's stone-dial guide, and the cross-family dial taxonomy sits on the 1803 entry.

The paved dial with applied blue Arabic numerals, the most decorated configuration catalogued for the reference.

Case, bezel, crystal, and crown

The case is the 36mm white-gold Oyster of the 6-digit generation, with the broader, fully polished lugs that separate it from the 5-digit 18238 era. The bezel is fluted, machined from solid white gold. The crystal is sapphire with a Cyclops, the crown a Twinlock screw-down, and the caseback screws down.

The rehaut is the quickest way to place an example in the run. Earlier production carries the serial engraved between the lugs at six o'clock; from the mid-2000s the serial moves to the inner crystal ring, engraved alongside the repeating ROLEX ROLEX ROLEX that Rolex added as an anti-counterfeiting measure. In 2010 the letter-prefix serial system gives way to random alphanumeric strings, so a 118239 can carry a lug serial, a rehaut serial with a letter prefix, or a rehaut serial with a scrambled one.

Bracelets, end links, and clasps

The 118239 on the Oyster bracelet — a fluted white-gold Day-Date on a flat three-piece bracelet, the least Presidential a President gets.

Most 118239s wear the President, the three-piece semicircular bracelet the reference inherited from the 1803, here with solid centre links and the concealed Crownclasp that hides the folding mechanism under a cover stamped with the coronet. The solid centre link is the generation's clearest tell against the hollow-link 5-digit bracelets, and it is most of the reason a 6-digit Day-Date feels heavier than its predecessor at the same case size.

The Oyster bracelet is the surprise. Roughly half the catalogued 118239 configurations sit on the flat three-piece Oyster instead of the President, a pairing usually associated with the smooth-bezel references like the 118208. A fluted white-gold Day-Date on an Oyster is about as far from the dress-watch reading of the model as Rolex ever took it. As with any President, a clasp date code dates the bracelet and not the head, and a serviced watch may well wear a later bracelet than its case. The cross-family detail sits on Reference:Bracelets.

Market

The 118239 moves through the dealer and certified-pre-owned market rather than the catalogued auctions, which is true of the 6-digit Day-Date generation generally. Where the generation does reach the auction record, the pattern is consistent: the dial carries the result, not the reference. Christie's Hong Kong sold a coral-dial 118208 for HKD 525,000 in 2014 and a bloodstone example for HKD 225,000 in 2018, several multiples over a plain-dial equivalent. On the 118239 the configurations that do the same work are the lapis, the meteorite and the pavé; a plain silver or black example is a straightforward modern Day-Date and prices like one.

Related references

• Day-Date 118238 — 2000–2019
• Day-Date 118235 — 2005–2019
• Day-Date 118208 — 2000–2019
• Day-Date 118138 — 2013–2019
• Day-Date 218238 — 2008–2015
• Day-Date 218206 — 2008–2015

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
• Day-Date — The Presidential Rolex — Pucci Papaleo, Pucci Papaleo Editore, 2015
• Rolex Day-Date — Giorgia Mondani and Guido Mondani, Guido Mondani Editore
• Monochrome editorial, "In-Depth: The History of the Rolex Day-Date, The Presidential Watch", Monochrome Watches
• Sotheby's editorial, "The Rolex Day-Date: A Complete Collector's Guide", Sotheby's
• Italian Watch Spotter editorial, "The History of the Rolex Day-Date", Italian Watch Spotter
• Fratello editorial, "Exploring Evergreens: The Rolex Day-Date 18238", Fratello Watches
• Italian Watch Spotter editorial, "Watch Guide: Rolex Stone Dials", Italian Watch Spotter
• SwissWatchExpo editorial, "Generations of the Rolex President Day-Date", SwissWatchExpo, 2024
• WatchBase, "Rolex caliber 3155 (registry page)", WatchBase
• WatchBase editorial, "Rolex Day-Date History", WatchBase, 2015-02-21
• WatchBase, "Rolex Day-Date 36 118239 — factory configuration registry", WatchBase