Rolex 218235 Day-Date II

Day-Date -> 218235

The 218235 is the Everose Day-Date II, the rose-gold member of the only 41mm President Rolex has built. It ran from 2008 to 2015 on the caliber 3156, with a fluted Everose bezel and a solid Everose President bracelet. Everose is Rolex's own pink-gold alloy, introduced in 2005 and mixed to hold its colour where ordinary rose gold drifts, and the 218235 is the reference that put it on the largest Day-Date case ever made. The chocolate dial is the one collectors picture, and on warm metal at 41mm it is the most confident-looking watch in the generation.

Core facts

detail	value
reference	218235
family	Day-Date (Day-Date II, 41mm)
production	2008 to 2015
movement	caliber 3156, 31 jewels, 28,800 vph, ~48h power reserve, double quickset, COSC chronometer
case	41mm 18k Everose gold Oyster, about 12.1mm thick
crystal	sapphire with Cyclops
bezel	fluted Everose
crown	Twinlock screw-down
bracelet	Everose President, three semi-circular links, concealed Crownclasp
water resistance	100m
dial	chocolate Roman the signature; ivory, black and silver Roman, black Arabic, chocolate wave Arabic, and factory diamond and baguette layouts
metal	Everose, Rolex's fade-resistant 18k pink gold (introduced 2005)
siblings	218238 (yellow gold), 218239 (white gold), 218206 (platinum), 218348 / 218349 (factory diamond bezel)
36mm counterpart	118235, which ran alongside rather than being replaced
successor	228235 (Day-Date 40, caliber 3255, from 2015)

Where it sits in the line

The 218235 is the warm-metal entry in the Day-Date II, the 2008 generation that took the President from 36mm to 41mm. Yellow gold is the 218238, white gold the 218239, platinum the 218206 with its smooth bezel and ice-blue dial, and factory diamond bezels sit on the 218348 and 218349. Everose gets the same fluted bezel as the other gold references and the same caliber; the metal is the whole difference.

One point is easy to get wrong. The 41mm Everose did not replace the 36mm Everose. The 118235 stayed in the catalogue until 2019, so for the whole life of the 218235 a buyer could walk into a dealer and choose between two Everose Presidents in two sizes. The Day-Date II was an addition to the range, and when it was dropped in 2015 the 36mm carried on. That makes the 218235 a seven-year window inside a much longer Everose run, and it is the only period in which the alloy was offered at this size.

Production outline

The Day-Date II launched at Baselworld 2008 alongside the Datejust II, and the 218235 ran with the generation to its 2015 discontinuation, when the Day-Date 40 arrived at 40mm and took the slot. Seven years is short by Day-Date standards, and it is the reason every 218235 sits inside a narrow date band.

The whole run falls in or near Rolex's random-serial era. The company moved to scrambled serial numbers catalogue-wide in 2010, and documented Everose examples carry random serials with warranty cards dated 2012, 2014 and 2015. Rolex has published no production figure for the reference, and none has surfaced from any other quarter, so the honest position is that the 218235 is uncommon relative to the yellow-gold 218238 without a number to put behind the word.

Movement notes

The caliber 3156 is the Day-Date II's own movement and was used in nothing else. It is the caliber 3155 rebuilt for the larger case, with a main plate roughly 2.5mm wider than the 3155's, and it carries 31 jewels, a 28,800 vph beat, about 48 hours of reserve, double quickset for day and date, and COSC certification. The balance is Glucydur with Microstella regulating screws, the hairspring is the blue Parachrom, and the Paraflex shock system is fitted. Introduced with the generation in 2008, the 3156 was retired in 2015 and 2016 as the Day-Date 40 moved to the caliber 3255 and its 70-hour reserve.

One caveat for anyone reading listings. The 218235 is occasionally advertised with a caliber 3155, the 36mm movement. Every specification source for the reference gives the 3156, and a 3155 in a 41mm Day-Date II case would be the wrong movement for the case, so treat the claim as a listing error rather than a variant. The Reference:Movements page carries the caliber lineage, and the 218238 entry covers the 3156 in more depth.

Dial map

Silver Roman dial, the coolest-toned of the plain Everose layouts.

Black Arabic dial on Everose. The layout is documented on the market but does not appear in the published Day-Date II dial-code roster.

The Everose 218235 was offered across a wider spread of dials than its short run suggests, and the documented layouts split into plain-marker dials and factory gem-set ones.

dial	markers	code where documented	notes
chocolate	Roman	218235-0035	the signature Everose pairing and the most recognised 218235
ivory	Roman	218235-0033	the lightest of the plain dials
black	Roman	218235-0034	Everose applied markers and hands
pink	diamond	218235-0008	factory diamond hour markers on a pink ground
silver	Roman	not in the published roster	documented on the market
black	Arabic	not in the published roster	documented on the market
chocolate wave	Arabic	not in the published roster	wave-pattern ground, an Everose reading of a Day-Date II dial texture
black	baguette diamond	not in the published roster	factory baguette markers, the top of the standard-bezel range
pink	Roman	not in the published roster	the warmest of the plain layouts

The published dial-code roster for the Day-Date II runs to seventeen codes across the whole generation, four of them on the 218235. At least five further Everose layouts are documented in the market, which means the roster is a useful floor rather than a complete list. Anyone working from the codes alone will conclude that dials such as the black Arabic do not exist, and they do.

Factory gem-setting matters more here than on most references. Everose Presidents attract aftermarket work, and diamond-paved dials, custom-set bezels and fully diamond-set President bracelets turn up on 218235 cases regularly. The better listings label this honestly, and the distinction is worth insisting on: a factory diamond or baguette dial is a Rolex configuration with a catalogue code behind it, while an aftermarket paved dial is jewellery added later that carries no Rolex warranty and reads differently in the market. The stone cut, the prong style and the evenness of the setting are the tells.

Case, bezel, crystal, and crown

The case is 41mm in 18k Everose, roughly 12.1mm thick, with a sapphire crystal, a Cyclops over the date and a Twinlock screw-down crown, rated to 100m. The bezel is fluted, the format the Day-Date has worn since the 4-digit era, and on Everose the fluting catches light in a warmer register than on yellow gold.

The 41mm proportions are the thing to try before buying. This is the largest case the Day-Date has ever used, and contemporaneous coverage of the generation read it as substantial, with wide lugs and a long profile that gives the watch more presence than any 36mm President. In Everose that presence is amplified, because pink gold reads warmer and heavier to the eye than yellow. Collectors are genuinely divided on it, and Rolex's own answer was to step back to 40mm in 2015.

Bracelets, end links, and clasps

The 218235 wears the Everose President, the three-piece semi-circular-link bracelet scaled up to the 41mm head, with the concealed Crownclasp that shows only the coronet on the closed cover. In solid Everose it accounts for a large share of the watch's weight. As with any President, a clasp date code dates the bracelet rather than the watch head, and a bracelet can be older or newer than the case it is on. The cross-family detail sits on Reference:Bracelets.

Special branches

Everose and the chocolate dial

The chocolate dial and the Everose case belong together, and the 218235 is where the pairing landed at 41mm. The combination arrived on the 36mm 118235 and carried into the Day-Date II, where the larger dial gives the brown ground more room to shift under light. Chocolate with Roman markers is the configuration that defines the reference in the secondary market, and it is the layout most often reached for when the 218235 is described at all.

Gem-set and aftermarket examples

Factory black baguette-diamond dial, the top of the standard fluted-bezel range.

Factory pink diamond dial, catalogued as 218235-0008. Factory gem-setting carries a Rolex dial code; aftermarket stones do not.

Everose 218235s appear with factory diamond and baguette dials and, separately, with aftermarket stones on the dial, bezel and bracelet. The two are worth keeping strictly apart. Factory gem-set dials such as the pink diamond and the black baguette configurations are catalogue variants and trade as Rolex product. Aftermarket-set examples ask higher numbers than plain factory watches, but that premium is the value of the stones and the labour rather than the value of the reference, and it does not follow the watch through a knowledgeable sale.

Market and auction record

The Day-Date II's saleroom history belongs to the platinum 218206. Bonhams sold an ice-blue platinum example in London in June 2025 for £32,000, and the commissioned Gulf examples sit well above that. No 218235 lot surfaced in the research for this entry, though the searchable listings at the major houses cover upcoming sales rather than full archives, so that is a gap in the record rather than proof of absence. What is clear is that the Everose changes hands as a secondary-market watch rather than a saleroom one, which says nothing about desirability.

On the secondary market in 2026, plain factory-dial 218235s on the standard fluted bezel ask roughly USD 43,500 to 45,500, with the chocolate Roman at the upper end of that band. Factory baguette-diamond dials ask around USD 62,500. Rolex's own Certified Pre-Owned programme has carried an Everose 218235 at USD 50,750, which is the usual authorised-channel premium over the open market. Examples with aftermarket diamond dials, bezels and bracelets are asked at USD 65,000 to 68,000, and those figures should be read as the price of the stones rather than of the reference. Across the generation the Everose sits above the yellow-gold 218238 and below the platinum 218206.

Related references

Day-Date 218239 — 2008–2015 — white gold Day-Date II
Day-Date 218238 — 2008–2015 — yellow gold Day-Date II
Day-Date 218206 — 2008–2015 — platinum Day-Date II
Day-Date 118235 — 2005–2019 — the 36mm Everose President
Day-Date 118238 — 2000–2019
Day-Date 118208 — 2000–2019