Reference:116506

Daytona -> 116506

The 116506 is the first platinum Cosmograph Daytona. Rolex unveiled it at Baselworld 2013 to mark the Daytona's fiftieth anniversary, and it ran from that launch through to its discontinuation in March 2023, when the 126506 took over with caliber 4131 and a sapphire caseback. The case and bracelet are 950 platinum. The dial is the ice-blue lacquer Rolex reserves for its platinum references. The bezel is a chestnut brown Cerachrom monobloc with a tachymeter scale deposited in platinum by PVD — the third Rolex reference to use Cerachrom at the time of launch, per Logan Baker's Phillips Perpetual editorial on the reference. The movement is caliber 4130.

What Rolex did at the fiftieth anniversary was the opposite of what most of the watch press expected. JX Su's Baselworld 2013 launch coverage at SJX records the question that defined the Basel hall that week — what is going on with the blue-and-brown colour scheme — and Robert-Jan Broer's Fratello piece from the same week frames the choice as Rolex declining to issue a redesigned anniversary Daytona in favour of placing the existing 40mm Cosmograph in 950 platinum with a colour palette no Rolex chronograph had carried before. The combination has aged into one of the most recognisable Daytona configurations in the modern catalogue.

Core facts

detail	value
reference	116506
family	Daytona (Cosmograph)
production	2013 to 2023
anniversary launch	Baselworld 2013, Daytona 50th anniversary
case	40mm 950 platinum, ~12.5mm thick
crystal	flat sapphire, no Cyclops
bezel	monobloc Cerachrom in chestnut brown, tachymeter graduations in platinum PVD
crown	Triplock screw-down, twin-O-ring
pushers	screw-down, 950 platinum
movement	caliber 4130, in-house chronograph
frequency	28,800 vph (4 Hz)
jewels	44
power reserve	72 hours
water resistance	100m
bracelet	950 platinum Oyster
clasp	Oysterlock with Easylink 5mm comfort extension
dial	ice-blue lacquer, contrasting silver-grey-on-chestnut subdial rings, applied 18k white-gold indices
dial sub-references	116506-0001 (standard ice-blue), 116506-0002 / 0008 (baguette-diamond hour markers), 116506-0004 (Arabic-Indic numerals, Middle East)
launch retail	approx. USD 75,000 (per Logan Baker, Phillips); approx. GBP 50,000 (per Robert-Jan Broer, Fratello)
caseback	solid 950 platinum (sapphire caseback first appears on the 126506 successor)
predecessor	none in platinum; sits alongside the steel 116520, Rolesor 116523, yellow gold 116528
successor	126506 (2023, caliber 4131, sapphire caseback)
sibling diamond ref	116576TBR (pavé dial + baguette-set bezel, separate reference)

Where it sits in the line

The 116506 sits at the top of the cal-4130 generation. Its launch in 2013 came thirteen years into the cal-4130 production run that began with the steel 116520 in 2000, and it slots into the gold-and-platinum Daytona line that already included the steel-and-yellow-gold 116523, the yellow gold 116528, and the white gold 116519. Logan Baker's Phillips editorial frames the reference as the first time Rolex offered the Daytona case in solid platinum, and the move marked platinum out as the new top-of-the-line material for the Cosmograph rather than gold.

The chestnut-on-ice-blue palette has no precedent inside the Daytona line. Earlier modern Daytonas had carried mother-of-pearl, meteorite, and lacquered colour dials in the precious-metal references, but the chestnut Cerachrom bezel is unique to the 116506 inside the Cosmograph family — the rest of the cal-4130 ceramic-bezel rollout that arrived from 2011 onward used black Cerachrom on the gold and platinum chronograph references. The aBlogtoWatch hands-on review by Ariel Adams reads the chestnut-and-ice-blue combination as a Newman-era exotic-dial echo translated into modern materials. That framing is contested at Baselworld but has aged well in the years since.

The 126506 replaced the 116506 in March 2023 at Watches & Wonders, with caliber 4131 in place of cal 4130 and a sapphire caseback in place of the closed platinum back, per Fratello's hands-on comparison of the two generations. The 116506 is the last platinum Daytona Rolex produced with a solid caseback. Buyers who care about the closed back as a design feature — and many do, given the platinum mass it carries — will only find it on this reference.

Production outline

Rolex produced the 116506 from the Baselworld 2013 launch through to a 2023 wind-down that aligns with the Watches & Wonders Geneva announcement of the 126506. RolexForums collector threads from 2023 track the run-out at the dealer level: allocations slowed through late 2022 and 2023, and the reference left the catalogue when its successor took the platinum Daytona slot. The full production span is approximately ten years.

Across the run Rolex made the dial line denser without changing the case, bracelet, or movement. The launch dial in 2013 was the standard ice-blue lacquer with applied 18k white-gold hour indices and Chromalight-filled luminous plots, sold as 116506-0001. The diamond-set dial, with baguette-diamond hour markers in white gold settings on the same ice-blue ground, entered the catalogue early in the run, sold as 116506-0002 in earlier production and 116506-0008 in later catalogue updates per the 41Watch buyer's guide cataloguing of the platinum Daytona sub-references. An Arabic-Indic numeral dial appeared as a Middle East regional execution under sub-reference 116506-0004, with white-gold Eastern-Arabic numerals replacing the standard applied indices on the same ice-blue ground.

The case, bracelet, bezel, and movement held constant across the entire production run. There is no published collector taxonomy of mark-level dial generations within the 116506 — the run is too short and the production volume too limited for the kind of Mk-1-through-Mk-5 mapping that exists for the steel 116520. Forum collectors track minor printing differences across late and early examples, but no documented set of dial generations has formed.

Movement notes

Caliber 4130 is the same in-house chronograph movement Rolex launched in 2000 on the 116520, carried across every cal-4130-generation Daytona reference for twenty-three years. The architecture is column wheel start-stop-reset, vertical clutch chronograph engagement, blue Parachrom hairspring, 28,800 vph, 44 jewels, 72-hour reserve. CaliberCorner records the 290-part construction and ceramic reversing-wheel bearings; Colin A. White's The Vintage Rolex Field Manual (Morning Tundra) catalogues the cal 4130 as the longest-running modern Rolex chronograph caliber by a wide margin.

The 116506's solid platinum caseback hides the movement from view, which is consistent with every cal-4130 Daytona — Rolex never produced a sapphire-caseback variant in this generation. That reservation is what makes the move to a sapphire caseback on the 126506 successor read as a generational reset rather than a routine refresh, per Fratello's side-by-side comparison.

Movement servicing on the 116506 follows the same intervals and procedures as the rest of the cal-4130 line. There are no platinum-specific changes to the caliber. For the full caliber lineage see Reference:Movements#cal-4130.

Dial map

The ice-blue lacquer is the unifying feature across every 116506 dial. Rolex reserves the ice-blue colour exclusively for its platinum references — the same dial colour appears on the platinum Day-Date and platinum GMT-Master II, and never on a steel, gold, or two-tone Rolex. On the 116506 the ice-blue ground is paired with chestnut-toned subdial rings that match the bezel, and applied indices in white gold rather than the yellow-gold or two-tone applied indices found on the cal-4130 gold references. Subdial graphics carry through the standard Daytona layout: running seconds at nine, 30-minute counter at three, 12-hour counter at six.

sub-reference	variant	distinguishing features	notes
116506-0001	standard ice-blue	applied 18k white-gold indices, Chromalight luminous plots, no diamonds	Launch configuration. The dial that defined the reference at Baselworld 2013 and remained the volume-production option through to 2023.
116506-0002	baguette-diamond hour markers (early)	baguette-cut diamond hour markers in white-gold settings, applied to the ice-blue ground	Diamond-marker variant introduced during the early production run. Sold under sub-reference 0002 in earlier 116506 catalogue listings.
116506-0008	baguette-diamond hour markers (later)	same diamond-marker dial; later catalogue numbering	The 41Watch buyer's guide records the 0002-to-0008 sub-reference renumbering across the run as a cataloguing change rather than a dial-construction change. Documented at auction in the Sotheby's 2022 Important Watches lot of a c.2019 diamond-set 116506 and the Sotheby's 2024 Fine Watches lot of a late-production diamond-marker example.
116506-0004	Arabic-Indic numerals	white-gold Eastern-Arabic numerals replace the applied indices on the standard ice-blue ground	Middle East regional execution, sold through Rolex's Gulf-region distribution. Diamond markers absent on this variant; numerals are the only deviation from the launch dial.

The diamond-set bezel and pavé-dial executions of the platinum Daytona sit on a separate reference number, the 116576TBR, not the 116506. The TBR carries the same 950 platinum case and ice-blue dial language but adds a baguette-diamond bezel in place of the chestnut Cerachrom and a fully diamond-paved or baguette-set dial in place of the standard or single-row diamond marker dial. That reference is its own production line and is covered separately.

Case, bezel, crystal, and crown

The case is 950 platinum at 40mm, around 12.5mm thick, with brushed top surfaces and polished case-flank treatment. SJX's launch piece records the platinum's working properties: heavier than the steel and gold cases of the 116520 and 116528 generation, more malleable than steel, and softer to surface marking than gold. The Bexsonn launch coverage from the same week notes that Rolex finished the platinum case to the same brushed-and-polished tolerances as the steel 116520, which means the platinum reads in proportion to its sibling references rather than as a deliberately differentiated case profile. Lug geometry and case dimensions match the 40mm Daytona case Rolex had been refining since 2000.

The Cerachrom bezel is the headline material change. Rolex produces the chestnut bezel as a monobloc — the entire ring including the tachymeter graduations is a single piece of fired ceramic — with the numerals and graduations deposited as a thin layer of platinum through PVD. The chestnut hue is achieved in the firing process, not by surface treatment, which is what gives the bezel its colour stability against UV and chemical exposure. The tachymeter scale runs around the upper case, framed by the 116506's polished bezel-edge platinum casework. Logan Baker's Phillips editorial places the 116506 as the third Rolex reference to wear Cerachrom, after the GMT-Master II and the precious-metal Daytona references that received the material before the 116506's 50th-anniversary configuration.

The crystal is flat sapphire, no Cyclops, in the same proportions used across the cal-4130 Daytona line. The crown is the Triplock screw-down with twin-O-ring sealing, at the standard Rolex 700-series geometry. The chronograph pushers are screw-down 950 platinum and follow the same operating routine as the rest of the modern Daytona line: unscrew the pusher, operate the chronograph, screw it back down to seal the case. Water resistance is rated to 100m, consistent with every cal-4130 Daytona reference.

The aBlogtoWatch hands-on review records the on-wrist weight as the 116506's defining tactile feature — solid platinum at 40mm with a platinum bracelet is significantly heavier than the gold or two-tone references of the same generation. That weight is consistent across the production run; Rolex did not adjust the case or bracelet construction to compensate.

Bracelets, end links, and clasps

The bracelet is a 950 platinum Oyster, three-link, with brushed centre links and polished outer links, fitted with solid end links integral to the case. Rolex did not produce the 116506 on a strap; every example shipped on the matching platinum Oyster, and that bracelet is what gives the watch its on-wrist mass. The Sotheby's 2020 Important Watches lot of a 2013-production 116506 (case 288CN710) records the platinum Oyster as the original delivery configuration, and every subsequent Sotheby's lot of the reference confirms the same bracelet pairing.

The clasp is the modern Oysterlock with the Easylink 5mm comfort extension — the same lever-and-keeper micro-adjustment system Rolex rolled across the cal-4130 Daytona line in the early 2000s, executed here in 950 platinum. The Glidelock toolless extension that arrived on the ceramic Submariner generation in 2010 never crossed onto the Daytona; Easylink remains the only on-bracelet adjustment the 116506 ever offered. The Rubber B comparison of the 116506 to the 126506 records the clasp as one of the architectural changes between the two generations: the 126506 reworked the Oysterlock mechanism, which leaves the 116506 as the last platinum Daytona with the older clasp design.

The platinum Oyster bracelet on the 116506 is a single fitment across the production run. Sotheby's lot descriptions, the Fratello launch coverage, and Rubber B's generation-comparison piece all describe the same platinum Oyster on every documented example. End-link references and clasp date codes follow the modern Daytona conventions catalogued at Reference:Bracelets.

Special branches

Three production sub-variants are documented across the 116506 run, all variations on the standard ice-blue dial rather than reference-level departures: the launch 0001 (no diamonds), the diamond-marker 0002 / 0008 (baguette diamonds at the indices), and the Middle East 0004 (Arabic-Indic numerals). All three carry the same 950 platinum case and bracelet, the same chestnut Cerachrom monobloc bezel, and the same caliber 4130. The Sotheby's 2022 lot of a c.2019 diamond-set 116506 is the public-record anchor for the 0008 in the auction circuit, and the Sotheby's 2024 Fine Watches lot of a late-production diamond-marker example documents the variant carrying through to the wind-down.

The 116576TBR is the platinum Daytona's diamond-bezel sibling — pavé dial, baguette-diamond bezel in place of the Cerachrom — and it sits on its own reference number rather than as a 116506 sub-variant. Treat it as a related platinum Daytona rather than a 116506 special branch.

Double-signed and retailer-engraved 116506 examples have surfaced occasionally, but the reference's high retail and the 950 platinum mass kept the special-order branch narrow. Production volumes for any of the sub-references are not published by Rolex, and no collector census has surfaced.

Auction record

The 116506 entered the auction record at the same Geneva sale where Rolex marked the Daytona's fiftieth anniversary in public.

sale	date	lot detail	result
Christie's, "Lesson One", Geneva	10 November 2013	lot 50, 'The Nine-Fifty Tribute', full-set; estimate CHF 80,000-120,000	hammer CHF 197,000 (approx. USD 217,000 at the day's rate). The first 116506 to cross an auction block; placed the platinum Daytona at roughly twice its retail on the day it became publicly tradeable. Per Watchonista and JX Su (SJX).
Sotheby's Important Watches	2020	case 288CN710, c.2013 production, standard 116506-0001 with full-set documentation	Anchors the early-production ice-blue / chestnut configuration in the auction record.
Sotheby's Important Watches	2021	brand-new 116506 with full-set documentation; estimate USD 100,000-150,000	Sold during the Daytona allocation-premium peak.
Sotheby's Important Watches I	2022	c.2019 116506 with baguette-diamond markers (sub-reference 0008)	Anchors the diamond-set ice-blue variant in the auction record.
Sotheby's Fine Watches	2024	late-production diamond-marker 116506	Documents the variant carrying through to the 2023 discontinuation.

The 116506 has not produced an auction headline at the scale of the manual-wind exotic-dial 6263 results or the Albino, Unicorn, and JPS singletons that anchor the vintage Daytona record. What it has produced is a steady mid-six-figure to high-six-figure auction line through the 2013-2024 window, with the diamond-marker examples consistently lifting toward USD 200,000-plus on full-set provenance. Buyers entering the secondary market are pricing the 116506 against the 126506 successor's retail rather than against the manual-wind vintage line.

Sources