Reference:118139

The 118139 is the white-gold strap Day-Date 36. It uses the same 36mm 18k white gold case and fluted bezel as the President-bracelet 118239, and hangs it on an alligator strap closed by a folding gold clasp. Rolex added the strap-mounted Day-Dates to the line at Baselworld 2013 alongside the yellow-gold 118138 and the Everose 118135. Where the yellow-gold version took the warm colours, the white-gold one took the cold ones: blue, cherry, rhodium, and a lapis lazuli stone dial. Caliber 3155, made to about 2019.

Core facts

detail	value
reference	118139
family	Day-Date (Day-Date 36, 6-digit)
production	2013 to about 2019
movement	caliber 3155, 28,800 vph, blue Parachrom hairspring, double quickset, COSC
case	36mm 18k white gold, monobloc middle case, screw-down caseback
crystal	sapphire with Cyclops
bezel	fluted
strap	alligator leather; Rolex's spec sheets name a folding Oysterclasp, its catalogue prose an 18 ct gold Crownclasp
dial	blue, cherry, rhodium, lapis lazuli, white carousel catalogued; white Roman also documented
crown	screw-down, Twinlock
water resistance	100 metres
siblings	118239 (white gold, President bracelet), 118138 (yellow-gold strap), 118135 (Everose strap), 118209 (white gold, smooth bezel)
successor	none direct; the caliber-3255 strap Day-Date 36 references that arrived in 2021 are fully gem-set

Where it sits in the line

The 118139 is what happens when the white-gold Day-Date loses its bracelet. Everything from the lugs inward is the 118239: the same 36mm white-gold Oyster case, the same fluted bezel, the same caliber 3155. The strap is the whole difference, and it is a bigger one than it sounds. A gold President bracelet accounts for much of what a Day-Date weighs and much of what it costs, so taking it off produces a lighter, cheaper, less ceremonial watch out of unchanged parts.

White gold sharpens that further. A yellow-gold Day-Date on leather still reads as a gold watch; a white-gold one on a dark alligator strap mostly reads as a dress watch that happens to be precious metal. That understatement is the reason to want one, and it is the same instinct that produced the smooth-bezel 118209 on the bracelet side of the catalogue.

Production outline

Rolex introduced the strap Day-Date 36 at Baselworld 2013, well into the run of the 118xxx case generation that began in 2000. The 118139 belongs to that 2013 group rather than to the start of the generation, so it is a watch of the 2010s. It ran to about 2019, when the caliber-3255 references took over the Day-Date 36.

Nothing plain replaced it. When a strap Day-Date 36 returned at Watches and Wonders in 2021 it came only in fully gem-set form, so the 118139 and its two siblings remain the only Day-Date 36 references offered on leather with an ordinary bezel and an ordinary dial. Rolex has published no production figure.

Movement notes

The 118139 runs caliber 3155, the double-quickset Day-Date movement, beating at 28,800 vph with the paramagnetic blue Parachrom hairspring and bidirectional winding through the Perpetual rotor. Day and date both set from the crown, and the seconds hack. It is the same movement as the bracelet-mounted 118239 and the yellow-gold 118138; the strap changes the watch, not the mechanism. The Reference:Movements page holds the caliber lineage, and the 118238 entry covers the 3155 in detail.

One detail dates an example from its paperwork rather than its movement. Rolex's earlier spec sheet for the reference certifies it as an officially certified Swiss chronometer to COSC; the later one reads "Superlative Chronometer (COSC + Rolex certification after casing)". That is Rolex redefining what Superlative Chronometer meant across the catalogue from 2015, not two different calibers.

Dial map

Five dials are documented in Rolex's own catalogue for the 118139, and they are the clearest evidence of what the white-gold strap version was meant to be.

The blue sunburst is the signature, sold on a matching blue alligator strap, and it is the configuration most people picture. The cherry, a saturated red-purple, came on a bordeaux strap and is the boldest of the set. Rhodium is the conservative choice, a plain grey-silver that leans hardest into the dress-watch reading. The white carousel adds a textured, spun pattern. The outlier is lapis lazuli, a genuine hardstone dial, and the only one of the five where the dial rather than the strap is the reason to buy the watch.

Beyond the catalogued five, white Roman-numeral examples on brown alligator turn up on the market, so the range on the ground is wider than the five configurations Rolex kept online. Deeper dial taxonomy across the President line sits on the 1803 entry.

Case, bezel, crystal, and crown

The case is the 36mm white-gold Oyster of the 6-digit Day-Date: monobloc middle case, screw-down caseback, screw-down Twinlock crown, sapphire crystal with a Cyclops over the date, waterproof to 100 metres. The lugs carry a strap instead of an end link, and that is the only structural departure from the bracelet references.

The bezel is fluted. This is worth stating plainly because dealer listings routinely describe the strap Day-Dates as smooth-bezel watches, and photographs of real examples show the fluting as clearly as Rolex's own spec sheet prints it. On white gold the fluting reads as a fine ribbed ring rather than the bright sunburst it makes on yellow gold, which is probably where the confusion starts.

Strap and clasp

The 118139 wears an alligator strap in a colour matched to the dial, and the clasp is where Rolex contradicts itself. The downloadable spec sheets list the fitting as a folding Oysterclasp; the catalogue text on the same product pages describes an 18 ct gold Crownclasp, the concealed folding buckle that hides under a crown medallion. Both descriptions are Rolex's, published at the same time about the same watch, and no third source resolves them. In practice the strap is a wear item and gets replaced, so the clasp on a given example dates that example's last strap change rather than the watch.

The cross-family bracelet detail sits on Reference:Bracelets. The strap Day-Dates sit apart from the President-bracelet references covered there.

Special branches

The lapis lazuli dial

Lapis is the one 118139 that a collector would chase for the dial alone. Rolex cut stone dials in small numbers across the Day-Date line, and the deep blue of lapis against a white-gold case and a dark strap is the most striking combination the reference offered. It sits apart from the four metallic and lacquer dials in both rarity and price.

The quiet one of the 2013 trio

Of the three strap Day-Dates launched in 2013, the yellow gold gets the attention, on the strength of the cognac and green dials that came with it. The white gold is the one that disappears on the wrist. That is either the point of the watch or the reason it sold in smaller numbers, depending on which collector is asked, and both readings show up in how the two references trade.

Market

The 118139 is a modern reference that changes hands through the dealer and certified-pre-owned market rather than under the hammer; no headline auction lot has surfaced for it. Documented asking prices sit in the mid-twenties of thousands of dollars for a standard catalogued dial in good order with its box and papers, which places it below the white-gold President-bracelet 118239 by roughly the value of the gold bracelet it does without. The lapis lazuli and any gem-set configuration carry premiums above that band. As with the rest of the strap group, the dial drives the price and the strap itself is worth nothing, because it will have been replaced.

Sources

Related references

Day-Date 118138 — 2013–2019 Day-Date 118239 — 2000–2019 Day-Date 118238 — 2000–2019 Day-Date 118209 — 2000–2019 Day-Date 118208 — 2000–2019 Day-Date 118235 — 2005–2019