Rolex Cosmograph Daytona 116505

Daytona -> 116505

The 116505 is the first Daytona made entirely in Rolex's Everose gold. Launched at Baselworld 2008, it shares the cal 4130 architecture and 40mm Oyster case profile of the steel 116520 and full-yellow-gold 116528, finished in the warm pink alloy Rolex patented in 2005 to keep rose-gold colour stable across the life of the watch. Production ran fifteen years on a single reference number before the cal 4131 successor 126505 took over in early 2023.

Dial breadth is what separates the 116505 from its yellow-gold and Rolesor siblings. The Everose case carries a wider catalogue of dial colours and stone treatments than any other cal 4130 generation Daytona, running chocolate, black, ivory, sundust pink, and, from 2021, meteorite, with diamond-marker and baguette variants layered onto each base. Within the modern line it is the engraved-Everose option, sitting between the engraved-bezel yellow-gold 116528 and the Cerachrom-bezel 116515LN.

Core facts

detail	value
reference	116505
family	Daytona (Cosmograph, automatic)
production	2008–2023 (fifteen years)
case	40mm, 18k Everose gold
crystal	flat sapphire, no Cyclops
bezel	engraved 18k Everose gold tachymeter, fixed
crown	Triplock screw-down, Everose gold
movement	Rolex caliber 4130, in-house, COSC
frequency	28,800 vph (4 Hz)
power reserve	72 hours
jewels	44
water resistance	100m / 330ft
bracelet	18k Everose gold Oyster, SEL
clasp	Oysterlock with Easylink 5mm comfort extension
siblings	116520 (steel), 116528 (yellow gold), 116523 (Rolesor), 116519 (white gold, leather)
successor	126505 (cal 4131, 2023, out of scope)

Where it sits in the line

The 116505 launched in 2008, eight years into the cal 4130 production run that started with the 116520. Yellow-gold and Rolesor versions on Oyster bracelets had carried the in-house movement since 2000; the 116505 added pink to the catalogue without changing the case profile or the movement.

Case, bracelet, and movement architecture are shared with the 116528 yellow-gold Daytona: the same 40mm Oyster shell, the same screw-down pushers, the same engraved metal tachymeter bezel, the same 78509 / Everose-cast SEL Oyster bracelet, all finished in the 2005 Everose alloy. Rolex describes Everose as a copper-rich rose gold stabilised by a small platinum addition that prevents the copper-driven colour fade typical of conventional rose-gold alloys, cast in its own foundry rather than bought in.

The Cerachrom-bezel Everose Daytona 116515LN arrived in 2011, and the two ran in parallel for twelve years. The 116505 is the engraved-bezel route to the same case and movement without the ceramic insert. In 2023 the 126505 (cal 4131) replaced both it and the engraved-bezel 116528 with a single thinner-cased successor, which leaves the 116505 as the last engraved-Everose Daytona Rolex built.

Production outline

Production runs 2008 to early 2023. The reference launched at Baselworld 2008 with chocolate, black, and ivory dials documented at introduction, and sundust, a soft pink lacquer, joined them early in the run. Meteorite, the slate-grey iron-nickel mineral dial Rolex had already used on Day-Date and earlier Daytona references, arrived only in 2021, alongside the parallel meteorite rollout on the 116515LN, 116518LN, and 116519LN.

Rolex moved the whole catalogue to eight-character random alphanumeric serials in mid-2010, so only the first two years of 116505 production (2008 to mid-2010) carry a conventional letter-prefix serial. See Reference:Serial-numbers for the full key.

Lume is Chromalight blue for the whole run. Chromalight had reached the modern Rolex catalogue by 2008, so the Everose reference never saw the cream-to-white Super-LumiNova that bracketed 116520 production.

Movement notes

Caliber 4130 sits inside every 116505, the same first in-house Rolex chronograph that launched on the 116520 in 2000. It couples the chronograph through a vertical clutch and handles start, stop, and reset on a column wheel, running at 28,800 vph on 44 jewels with a 72-hour reserve and COSC certification. The blue Parachrom hairspring is standard on production from around 2005 onward. Hour and minute counters share a single side of the movement, and mainspring replacement does not require uncasing.

By the Everose launch the 4130 was a mature movement, with the Parachrom hairspring already standard and the architecture familiar to Rolex service departments. Ross Povey, writing in Revolution, notes the 201-part layout, well below the El Primero-based 4030, and the vertical clutch that lets the chronograph run without the amplitude penalty a lateral clutch imposes. That matters on a gold Daytona, where plenty of examples get worn as everyday watches rather than stored as fragile variants.

The 116505 carries Superlative Chronometer certification across its whole production span. Rolex redefined that certification in 2015 around a −2/+2 seconds-per-day casing standard and a five-year guarantee, and late production, including the 2021 meteorite executions, falls under the modern language.

For the full caliber lineage and the architecture comparison with the predecessor cal 4030, see Reference:Movements#cal-4130.

Dial map

The Everose case invited colour and stone variations that the steel 116520 never received and that the yellow-gold 116528 only partially shares. Rolex catalogue editorial across the production run documents the configurations below.

Variant	Period	Distinguishing features
Chocolate	2008–2023	Warm dark-brown lacquer base; black sub-dial rings on the most common -0013 / -CHOCBKI variant; applied gold five-minute markers; reads as the signature 116505 dial colour and the most-photographed configuration in the auction record
Black	2008–2023	Black lacquer base with pink (Everose-tone) sub-dial rings; applied gold markers; carries the red Daytona script above the six o'clock sub-register on most production
Ivory	2008–2023	Off-white cream lacquer base with three sub-dials in the same ivory tone; applied gold markers; runs the entire production span
Sundust (pink)	~2009–2023	Soft pink-rose lacquer base; black or matching-tone sub-dials depending on suffix code; reads as the "rose on rose" configuration that defines a portion of the late-production market
Meteorite	2021–2023	Slate-grey Gibeon-meteorite mineral base showing the natural Widmanstätten crystal pattern; applied gold markers; introduced 2021 alongside the parallel meteorite rollout on 116508 / 116509 / 116515LN / 116518LN / 116519LN
Diamond-marker variants	2008–2023	Applied diamond hour markers on chocolate, black, ivory, sundust, or meteorite base; documented across the production run rather than on a single sub-period
Baguette-marker variants	2008–2023	Baguette-cut diamond markers replacing the standard applied gold markers; appears on chocolate, black, sundust and ivory bases in catalogue text

The white mother-of-pearl dial documented on the 116509 white-gold Daytona never formally entered the 116505 catalogue. Overlap between the gold Daytonas of the 4130 generation is broad but not total.

Case, bezel, crystal, and crown

The case is 40mm in 18k Everose gold, the same nameplate dimension as the steel 116520 and the yellow-gold 116528, with lug-to-lug and thickness tracking the rest of the cal 4130 generation. Whether the gold case actually runs to the marketed 40mm is not separately documented. The steel 116520 measures 38.5mm against the same nameplate figure, and gold and platinum cases in Rolex's modern catalogue generally sit closer to the marketed number than the steel forgings do.

The bezel is engraved 18k Everose gold, with the tachymeter numerals and graduations cut directly into the metal rather than printed onto an insert. It is the same engraved-bezel architecture the 116520 and 116528 carry. Cerachrom reached the Everose Daytona only with the parallel 116515LN in 2011, so anyone who wanted ceramic on an Everose case had to cross to the LN reference. The 116505 stays engraved across its full run.

The crystal is flat sapphire with no Cyclops, the running-seconds sub-dial sits at six o'clock, and the Triplock crown handles 100m water resistance. Screw-down chronograph pushers sit either side of the crown and have to be unscrewed before the chronograph will start, the cal 4130 generation's standing trade-off for the case's water rating and identical across steel, gold, and Everose.

Bracelets, end links, and clasps

The bracelet is the 18k Everose gold Oyster with solid end links, integral to the first link rather than a separable stamped piece, machined throughout in Everose. It is the gold parallel to the steel 78490 that carried the 116520 across its run. The 116505's own gold bracelet reference number appears in the boxed-set paperwork rather than on the bracelet, and auction catalogue text generally identifies it by material rather than by number.

The clasp is the modern Oysterlock with the Easylink 5mm comfort extension, the lever-and-keeper micro-extension Rolex added to the cal 4130 generation around 2002–2003. Every 116505 carries it from launch; the early-production Oysterlock-without-Easylink configuration found on a small share of 116520 and 116528 production never reached the Everose reference. The clasp blade carries a year code, a single letter through 2010 and a three-character random alphanumeric from 2011, and on solid-end-link bracelets the date code, part number, and Rolex crown are stamped into the underside of the end link rather than the clasp blade alone. See Reference:Bracelets for the full date-code key.

The Daytona never adopted the Glidelock micro-extension Rolex rolled onto the Submariner-line clasps in 2010. Easylink remains the only on-bracelet adjustment the 116505 ever offered.

Finishing follows the standard modern precious-metal Daytona formula, with brushed outer links, polished centre links, and a polished clasp cover. It presents dressier than the steel 116520, though the clasp hardware is the same Oysterlock and Easylink.

Special branches

The 116505 has no single-artifact provenance lot of the kind that anchors the 16520 (Newman), the 6263 (RCO / Big Red), or the 116528 (Clapton). What it has instead is a documented dial-variant programme, chocolate through black, ivory, sundust and meteorite, each available with diamond or baguette markers, and that programme is how Rolex used the Everose case to separate the reference from the engraved yellow-gold 116528.

The meteorite dial is the headline late-run variant. Rolex introduced it across the cal 4130 generation gold Daytonas in 2021, which gave the 116505 two production years with the option before the 2023 cal 4131 transition. The Gibeon-meteorite mineral base shows the natural Widmanstätten crystal pattern, so no two dials are identical, and the variant carries a documented secondary-market premium over the lacquer-dial 116505.

The 2021 release split bezel and bracelet across the metals. The white-gold 116519LN paired a black Cerachrom bezel with Oysterflex, while the yellow-gold 116508 and Everose 116505 kept engraved metal bezels and Oyster bracelets. The 116505 meteorite is the full-metal Everose execution of that programme.

Tiffany & Co. and other retailer-double-signed 116505 examples have not surfaced in the public auction record at the volume that defines the earlier 16528 generation. By the late 2000s the retailer dial-signing programme behind the documented Tiffany Daytonas of the 1980s and 1990s had largely ended at most of the historical partners, and the 116505 sits on the post-programme side of that line.

Historical market and auction record

The 116505 trades mostly through dealer and private channels rather than at major auction. Sotheby's, Christie's, and Phillips have catalogued individual lots across the production span, with chocolate-dial and meteorite-dial examples drawing the strongest bids. Buyers here are paying for the material and the movement, not for a headline provenance record.

Related references

Daytona 116500LN — Ceramic Bezel (2016–2023)
Daytona 116508 — Yellow Gold, Cal 4130 (2016–2023)
Daytona 116520 — Steel, Cal 4130 (2000–2016)
Daytona 116528 — 2000–2016
Daytona 116518 — 2000–2015
Daytona 16519 — White Gold Zenith (1989–2000)

Sources