Rolex Day-Date 1804

Day-Date → 1804

The 1804 is the gem-set Day-Date, the diamond-bezel member of the 4-digit President group. It is built on the same 36mm case and caliber 1555/1556 movement as the fluted 1803, with a factory diamond-set bezel in place of the fluting. Rolex made it in yellow, white and pink gold and in platinum, and platinum is where the reference earns its reputation. The platinum 1804s, several carrying Eastern-Arabic calendar discs made for Gulf clients, are among the most valuable 4-digit Day-Dates of all, and they sit far above the gold examples in both rarity and price.

Core facts

detail	value
reference	1804
family	Day-Date
production	catalogue from 1961 (alongside the 1803 and 1806) into the late 1970s (4-digit era)
movement	caliber 1555 (to c. 1965), then caliber 1556; hacking from 1972; no quickset
case	36mm 18k gold or platinum President — yellow, white, pink/rose gold, and platinum
crystal	acrylic
bezel	factory diamond-set; 44 round brilliants the platinum standard, the count set per example
bracelet	President, including gem-set President on the high-jewellery examples; Jubilee on special order
dial	diamond-index, geometric-engraved, Eastern-Arabic, and Stella lacquer — gem-set configurations the 1804's signature
crown	Twinlock screw-down
sibling references	1803 (fluted), 1806 (Florentine), 1807 (bark), 1811 (Morellis)
predecessor	originals-era 6610 / 6611 / 6612 cluster
successor	5-digit 18048 (yellow gold), 18049 (white gold), 18046 (platinum), all diamond-bezel

Where it sits in the line

The 1804 is the jewellery member of the 4-digit Day-Date group. Where the textured siblings work the gold surface itself, the 1806 with a Florentine cross-hatch, the 1807 with bark and the 1811 with the Morellis moiré, the 1804 sets diamonds into the bezel and leaves the gold polished. It is the reference Rolex reached for when a Day-Date was meant to be as much jewellery as watch.

Everything behind the bezel is 1803. The 36mm case, the caliber 1555/1556 movement, the quickset-free day-and-date mechanism and the President bracelet all carry over, and the 1803 entry holds the full account. What sets the 1804 apart is metal and stones. It is the 4-digit reference most often seen in platinum, and platinum is where its market sits: the gold diamond-bezel examples trade as dressed-up Presidents, while the platinum examples, especially those with Arabic calendar discs, reach a different level entirely.

Production outline

The 1804 appears in the Rolex catalogue from 1961, alongside the 1802, the fluted 1803 and the Florentine 1806, on the printed-archive research in Giorgia and Guido Mondani's Rolex Day-Date (Guido Mondani Editore). Physical production tracks the 1803 from around 1960. The reference shares the 1803's case-serial stream rather than carrying a sequence of its own: documented platinum and gold examples run from case numbers around 549,000 in 1960 and 740,000 in 1961, through roughly 1,526,000 in 1967 and 1,865,000 around 1969, to about 5,028,000 by 1978. The run closes with the 4-digit era in 1977-78, when the 5-digit references take over and split the diamond-bezel Day-Date by metal: the 18048 in yellow gold, the 18049 in white gold and the 18046 in platinum. No Rolex production figure has surfaced for the 1804, and like the other non-fluted siblings it sold in small numbers against the volume 1803.

Movement notes

The 1804 uses the standard 4-digit Day-Date movement: caliber 1555 from the start, replaced by caliber 1556 around 1965 with the 19,800 vph rate, the extra jewel and the free-sprung Microstella balance. Hacking seconds arrived across the 1500 family in 1972, and no 4-digit Day-Date has quickset, so day and date advance only by running the hands through midnight. The platinum and gem-set cases carry the same movement as the plain 1803; there is no 1804-specific caliber. The Reference:Movements page holds the caliber lineage, and the 1803 entry covers the 1555-to-1556 transition in detail.

Dial map

The 1804 took the standard 4-digit Day-Date dials, but its signature configurations are the gem-set and special ones, and they split cleanly enough to list.

Diamond-set hour markers, round brilliants on silvered or champagne grounds with larger stones at 6 and 9, are the standard gem dial and the most common 1804 face. Sotheby's catalogued a platinum example with a blue diamond-index dial dated to about 1978. The yellow-gold "Octopussy" pairs a champagne dial with blue sapphire baguette markers, the most heavily jewelled of the documented dials.

Two named dials carry the reference's reputation, both christened by the collector Pucci Papaleo in his Day-Date — The Presidential Rolex (Pucci Papaleo Editore, 2015). The "Brooklyn Bridge", a platinum 1961 example, runs a linear geometric engraved dial with eight round-brilliant markers and two baguettes at 6 and 9, named for the bridge-cable pattern of the engraving. The "Scheherazade", also Papaleo's name, is the Eastern-Arabic configuration: applied white-gold Arabic numerals with an Arabic day-and-date disc, on platinum. The name covers more than one watch rather than a single piece.

Stella lacquer turns up on the 1804 itself, not only on the plain 1803: baby-blue on platinum, sea-foam and peppermint green and pink on white gold, and carmine red and burgundy, several paired with baguette diamond markers, across the early-to-late 1970s. Stone dials such as onyx belong to the 5-digit diamond references rather than the 4-digit 1804, and an onyx-on-platinum 1804 is not documented. The deep dial taxonomy that spans the whole President line sits on the 1803 entry; on the 1804 the bezel and the stones, not the dial alone, are the story.

Case, bezel, crystal, and crown

The case is the 36mm gold or platinum Oyster shared across the 4-digit Day-Date, with a Twinlock screw-down crown, screw-down caseback and acrylic crystal. The defining feature is the factory diamond-set bezel that replaces the 1803's fluting. The stone count is not fixed across the reference, and the sources do not agree on a standard. Mondani gives 46 round diamonds as the reference's bezel count, while the platinum examples catalogued by Phillips carry 44; one white-gold example carried 46 and the yellow-gold "Octopussy" 48. Platinum examples weigh markedly more than their gold counterparts, one catalogued near 65 grams, and the platinum dial is typically silvered with eight round-brilliant markers and two baguettes at 6 and 9.

The 1804 shares the 1803's case and caseback, to the point that Phillips catalogued a yellow-gold 1804 whose inner caseback is stamped 1803. Attribution therefore rests on the reference engraved between the lugs and on the gem-set bezel, not on the caseback stamp. Factory gem-setting is the value driver, and aftermarket stones are common on Day-Dates, so a genuine 1804 is read from Rolex paperwork and from the quality and pattern of the setting rather than from a listing's label.

Bracelets, end links, and clasps

The 1804 wears the President, with gem-set President bracelets on the high-jewellery examples and Jubilee fitments on some special orders. As with any vintage President, a clasp date code dates the bracelet rather than the watch head, and decades of service can put a later bracelet on an earlier head. The cross-family bracelet detail sits on Reference:Bracelets.

Special branches

The platinum Arabic Day-Dates

The platinum case with an Eastern-Arabic calendar disc is the 1804's signature and its most valuable branch. Rolex offered platinum Day-Dates with Arabic script to Gulf clients from the late 1950s; auction-house catalogues tie the choice of platinum to a preference among Muslim clients, for whom gold is discouraged for men, a rationale that is widely repeated but not documented in a Rolex order record. The configuration, nicknamed "Scheherazade" by Pucci Papaleo, pairs applied white-gold Arabic numerals and an Arabic day-and-date disc with a diamond bezel. Phillips sold a 1960 example for CHF 185,000 in 2015, and Antiquorum a separate c.1966 example for HKD 1,375,000 in 2023. The watchesbysjx.com history of the Arabic Day-Date calls the platinum Arabic 1804 the ultimate Arabic Rolex of its era.

Brooklyn Bridge

A platinum 1961 1804 with a linear geometric engraved dial, named "Brooklyn Bridge" for the dial's bridge-cable pattern, sold at Phillips in Geneva in May 2015 for CHF 305,000, the highest documented 1804 result. It is a distinct watch from the Arabic "Scheherazade" sold in the same auction, and the two are easily confused because both are platinum with a 44-diamond bezel.

Oman and Khanjar commissions

Editorial coverage documents platinum 1804s with Omani Khanjar dials, the crossed-daggers emblem applied by the London retailer Asprey for Sultan Qaboos. Le Monde Edmond records a platinum Khanjar 1804 sold at Christie's in 2014 for CHF 311,000, then a record for any Day-Date, though the engraved reference on that lot is not independently confirmed and the firmly reference-confirmed Omani Day-Dates of the period are the 1802, 1803 and 1831. Asprey and the Muscat distributor Khimji Ramdas are the names that recur on the Gulf Day-Dates of the era.

Auction record

The platinum 1804s anchor the reference's auction record, several multiples above the gold examples. The Phillips "Glamorous Day-Date" sale in Geneva in May 2015 ran two platinum lots in a single session: the geometric "Brooklyn Bridge" at CHF 305,000 and the Eastern-Arabic "Scheherazade" at CHF 185,000, both against CHF 50,000–100,000 estimates. Antiquorum sold a second platinum Arabic example in Hong Kong in 2023 for HKD 1,375,000, the highest confirmed 1804 result, and Monaco Legend Group sold a third in Monaco in 2022 for EUR 260,000. Gold examples sit lower, in the tens of thousands, with the striking exception of the yellow-gold "Octopussy", whose 48-diamond bezel, sapphire-baguette dial and gem-set President bracelet carried it to CHF 203,200, the only gold result to reach the platinum band. Stella-dial examples and plain diamond-index examples in white and yellow gold trade in the CHF/EUR 30,000–60,000 range. Original factory gem-setting and unpolished cases are the value drivers throughout.

date	house	configuration	result
May 2015	Phillips Geneva, Glamorous Day-Date, lot 21	platinum, 44-diamond bezel, "Brooklyn Bridge" geometric engraved dial, 1961, cal. 1555	CHF 305,000
May 2015	Phillips Geneva, Glamorous Day-Date, lot 24	platinum, 44-diamond bezel, Eastern-Arabic "Scheherazade" dial, 1960	CHF 185,000
Nov 2024	Phillips Geneva XX, lot 131	yellow gold "Octopussy", 48-diamond bezel, sapphire-baguette dial, gem-set President, 1976	CHF 203,200
Nov 2023	Antiquorum Hong Kong, lot 163	platinum "Scheherazade", Eastern-Arabic, diamond bezel, c.1966	HKD 1,375,000
Oct 2022	Monaco Legend Group, Exclusive Timepieces 30, lot 270	platinum, 46-diamond bezel, Eastern-Arabic dial, 1968	EUR 260,000
May 2015	Phillips Geneva, Glamorous Day-Date, lot 35	platinum, diamond bezel, full set, 1967	CHF 56,250
May 2015	Antiquorum Geneva, lot 478	white gold, 46-diamond bezel, carmine-red Stella diamond dial, 1968	CHF 47,500
Oct 2021	Monaco Legend Group, Exclusive Timepieces 25, lot 159	white gold, diamond bezel, diamond-index dial, 1975	EUR 59,800
Jan 2022	Antiquorum Monaco, lot 42	yellow gold, diamond bezel, burgundy Stella diamond dial, c.1977	EUR 35,100
Dec 2023	Sotheby's Important Watches, lot 15	platinum, blue diamond-index dial, diamond bezel, c.1978	published lot reference

Sources