Rolex Day-Date 18039

A checked version of this page, approved on 10 August 2026, was based on this revision.

Day-Date -> 18039

The 18039 is the white-gold 18038. Same 36mm President case, same caliber 3055, same sapphire crystal and fluted bezel, and in the 5-digit Day-Date numbering the closing digit is what separates them: 8 for yellow gold, 9 for white. Rolex built it from 1977 to 1988 and sold far fewer than the yellow-gold version, partly because a white-gold Day-Date reads as steel from any distance. That restraint is most of its appeal now. The examples collectors chase pair the quiet case with something loud on the dial — red Stella lacquer, a green dégradé, a wood veneer — or come from the two-tone Tridor branch Rolex numbered 18039B.

Core facts

detail	value
reference	18039
family	Day-Date
production	circa 1977 to 1988
movement	caliber 3055, 27 jewels, 28,800 vph, single quickset (date); hacking seconds
case	36mm 18k white gold President, roughly 13mm thick
crystal	sapphire with Cyclops
bezel	fluted white gold (yellow gold on the 18039B Tridor)
bracelet	President 8385 in white gold, concealed Crownclasp; three-colour Tridor on the 18039B
dial	silver and charcoal baton, copper, wood, green dégradé, red Stella, diamond-index, onyx
crown	Twinlock screw-down
siblings	18038 (yellow-gold fluted), 18028 (smooth), 18048 / 18049 (diamond), 18078 / 18079 (bark)
predecessor	1803
successor	18239 (caliber 3155, double quickset)

Where it sits in the line

The first 5-digit Day-Date generation splits twice: once by bezel finish, once by metal. Finish gives the smooth 18028, the fluted 18038, the factory-diamond 18048 and the bark 18078. Metal gives the closing digit. Phillips put the rule in a catalogue essay for a white-gold bark example: the last digit of the reference, in that case a 9, indicates 18k white gold. So the 18039 is the fluted 18038 in white gold, the 18049 the diamond-bezel version, the 18079 the bark, with platinum taking a 6.

Everything behind the metal is 18038. Antiquorum catalogued a 1981 example as the successor to the 1803, with the same single quickset that defines the generation, and the 18038 entry carries the shared account of the case, the movement and the bracelet. What white gold changes is the audience. A yellow-gold President announces itself; the 18039 does not, and buyers who wanted a Day-Date without the announcement bought this one.

Production outline

The 18039 arrives with the rest of the 180XX group in 1977, when sapphire crystals and the caliber 3055 replaced the acrylic-and-1556 4-digit references, and runs until 1988 and the arrival of the caliber 3155. Sotheby's dates the generation's introduction to 1977 in its catalogue notes; Antiquorum gives the same year for the 18039 specifically.

Documented case numbers track the run cleanly. Antiquorum has catalogued white-gold examples at 5,257,859 and 5,302,014 around 1977 to 1978, 5,507,421 in a set whose punched warranty records a German retail sale in November 1980, 6,724,084 around 1981, 6,739,240 in 1981, 7,522,088 in 1983, 8,651,110 in 1985 and 9,586,820 in 1986. No Rolex production figure has surfaced for the reference, and the scarcity collectors talk about rests on how seldom it appears rather than on factory data.

One sub-reference sits inside the run. Antiquorum catalogues the two-tone Tridor watches as 18039B and states they were produced for only three years, from 1985 to 1988, though the same house has dated Tridor examples to circa 1984, so the opening of that window is soft.

Movement notes

The 18039 runs the caliber 3055, the first quickset Day-Date movement: 27 jewels, 28,800 vph, rhodium-plated with oeil-de-perdrix decoration, a free-sprung Microstella balance, hacking seconds and chronometer certification. The quickset works on the date only. The day still has to be walked round by running the hands through midnight, and it stays that way until the caliber 3155 and its double quickset arrive in 1988. Nothing about the movement changes for white gold. The Reference:Movements page holds the caliber lineage and the 18038 entry covers the 3055 in detail.

Dial map

White gold gave Rolex a neutral ground, and the dials it carried run from severe to loud.

The everyday configurations are silvered and charcoal-grey with applied white-gold baton indexes, which is what Antiquorum catalogued on the 1981 example that anchors the reference's standard specification. Diamond-index dials on light grounds are common enough to count as a second standard. Colour turns up from the start of the run: a copper-toned dial on a circa-1977 example, and a green dégradé with diamond indexes on a circa-1978 example that took HKD 300,000 in Hong Kong in 2021 against an estimate a fraction of that.

Two branches carry the reference's reputation. Wood dials appear early, and Antiquorum sold a circa-1978 wood-dial 18039 complete with box, booklets and a punched warranty from a German retailer, its day disc printed in German. Red Stella lacquer is the other, and it appears twice in the auction record: a circa-1977 example with diamond indexes catalogued as an Oman-market dial, and a 1983 example with a diamond-set red Stella that is the strongest documented result for the reference.

The Tridor watches carry their own dial roster, covered below. The dial taxonomy that spans the whole President line sits on the 1803 entry.

Case, bezel, crystal, and crown

The case is the 36mm three-body white-gold Oyster shared across the 5-digit Day-Date, catalogued at roughly 13mm thick, with polished and brushed surfaces, curved lugs, a screw-down caseback, a Twinlock screw-down crown and a sapphire crystal with Cyclops. The bezel is fluted, cut from solid white gold on the standard reference.

White gold is the diagnostic that matters and the one that gets missed. A polished white-gold Day-Date is easy to mistake for steel or for a Rolesor Datejust at a glance, so hallmarks, the case number between the lugs and the weight do the work. A complete white-gold 18039 on its President bracelet has been weighed at 137 grams, well above what a steel watch of the same size would read.

Bracelets, end links, and clasps

The standard fitment is the white-gold President 8385 with the concealed Crownclasp and the solid links of the 5-digit era. As with any 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 case; the cross-family detail sits on Reference:Bracelets.

The Tridor bracelet is the exception and the reason the 18039B exists. Antiquorum describes Tridor as Rolex's trademark for bonding three colours of gold in stripes for bracelet use, and on these watches it means a President whose centre links fuse white, yellow and pink gold, worn with a white-gold case and a yellow-gold bezel. A Tridor 18039B that has lost its Tridor bracelet has lost the point of the reference; one such watch, sold in Geneva in 2013 on a plain gold-plated buckle, brought a small fraction of what the complete examples bring.

Special branches

The Tridor 18039B

The B suffix marks the Tridor. Antiquorum catalogues these as 18039B alongside the base reference 18000, describes the combination as a white-gold case with a yellow-gold bezel on a three-colour Tridor President bracelet, and dates the run to 1985 through 1988. The dials lean decorative: a matte champagne with applied radial yellow-gold Roman numerals, a Silver Jubilee ground set with eight round and two baguette diamonds, a midnight-blue with ten round diamond indexes, and a black onyx with an Italian day disc sold new by Gobbi in Milan in December 1986. Antiquorum has also offered a Tridor with baguette-cut sapphire, ruby and emerald hour markers, in a three-watch lot that paired two 18039B examples with the caliber-3155 18239B that replaced them.

Language discs and export markets

The day disc is where the 18039's export trail shows. Documented examples carry German and Italian day wheels alongside the English standard, and the red Stella example catalogued as an Oman dial places the reference in the Gulf special-order tradition that runs through the 1804 and the 18048. A language disc reflects the market the watch was sold into, not a separate reference.

Auction record

The 18039 trades in two bands. Standard dials sit in the low-to-mid five figures: CHF 20,000 in Geneva in 2015 for a charcoal-grey baton dial, CHF 10,625 for a copper dial in 2019, HKD 118,750 for a diamond-index example in Hong Kong in 2024. That is at or slightly below a comparable yellow-gold 18038. The exotic dials sit far above it. The 1983 red Stella took EUR 55,104 in Monaco in 2025, the green dégradé HKD 300,000 in 2021, and the wood dial EUR 31,250 with its original set. Tridor examples run their own market, from CHF 5,500 for one stripped of its bracelet to HKD 175,000 for a midnight-blue diamond dial on a complete Tridor President.

date	house	configuration	result
Dec 2025	Antiquorum Monaco, lot 147	red Stella diamond dial, 1983, case 7,522,088	EUR 55,104
Dec 2021	Antiquorum Hong Kong, lot 271	green dégradé diamond dial, c.1978	HKD 300,000
Jun 2015	Antiquorum Hong Kong, lot 663	18039B Tridor, midnight-blue diamond dial, 1986	HKD 175,000
Oct 2024	Antiquorum Hong Kong, lot 197	diamond-index dial, c.1981, case 6,724,084	HKD 118,750
Nov 2018	Antiquorum Geneva, lot 197	red Stella diamond dial, c.1977, Oman market	CHF 35,000
Jun 2021	Antiquorum Forte dei Marmi, lot 158	wood dial, German day disc, c.1978, full set	EUR 31,250
May 2015	Antiquorum Geneva, lot 482	18039B Tridor, black onyx dial, Gobbi Milan 1986	CHF 25,000
Mar 2015	Antiquorum Geneva, lot 292	charcoal-grey baton dial, 1981, case 6,739,240	CHF 20,000
Dec 2015	Antiquorum New York, lot 101	18039B Tridor, Silver Jubilee diamond dial, 1986	USD 13,750
Nov 2019	Antiquorum Geneva, lot 171	copper-coloured dial, c.1977	CHF 10,625
May 2013	Antiquorum Geneva, lot 253	18039B Tridor, champagne Roman dial, on a gold-plated buckle	CHF 5,500

Related references

Day-Date 18038 — Cal 3055 President (1977–1988)
Day-Date 18028 — 1977–1988
Day-Date 18048 — 1977–1988
Day-Date 18049 — White-gold diamond bezel (1977–1988)
Day-Date 18078 — 1977–1988
Day-Date 18079 — White-gold bark (1977–1988)
Day-Date 1803 — Fluted President (1960–1977)
Day-Date 18238 — 1988–2000

Sources