Rolex Cosmograph Daytona 'Paul Newman' Ref. 6239

A racing chronograph for 1963

Rolex introduced the reference 6239 in 1963. It was the first Cosmograph, the name Rolex gave its new chronograph line, and the first model of what would become the Daytona. Rolex had become the official timekeeper of Daytona International Speedway in Florida in 1962, and the Daytona name, which began appearing on the watch around 1965, was a nod to that tie to endurance racing.

The design was aimed squarely at drivers. Rolex moved the tachymeter scale off the dial and engraved it onto a metal bezel, which left the dial cleaner and easier to read at a glance. Inside was a manual-wind Valjoux 72 chronograph movement, a robust and widely respected caliber that Rolex designated 722 and later 722-1. The pushers were simple pump pushers, not the screw-down type that arrived on later references.

The 6239 was made from about 1963 to 1969, mostly in stainless steel but also in 14k and 18k yellow gold. Rolex followed it with the 6240 in 1965, which added screw-down pushers, the 6241 with a black acrylic bezel insert, and from 1970 the 6262 to 6265 family with the 727 caliber. The manual-wind Daytona lasted until 1988, when Rolex switched to an automatic movement.

The dial nobody wanted

Alongside its standard dials, Rolex offered an alternative from about 1965 that collectors now call the 'exotic' dial. It was made by Singer, Rolex's dial supplier. Its features are easy to spot once you know them: block-shaped markers instead of plain lines, Art Deco style numerals in the subsidiary registers, a seconds sub-dial marked at 15, 30, 45 and 60, small crosshair marks on the registers, and a minute track in a contrasting color, often red. Versions came white with black registers, the 'panda' look, and black with white registers.

At the time, buyers did not like it. The exotic dial was seen as a flop, customers preferred the standard dial, and dealers took a long time to move watches that carried it. Because Rolex fitted it for only about four or five years, and to a small share of production, it is estimated that only one in twenty Daytonas of the era got an exotic dial, roughly 2,000 to 3,000 in all.

Its rescue came in the 1980s, in Italy. Photographs of Paul Newman wearing his own exotic-dial 6239 circulated, and Italian dealers and auctioneers began calling these dials 'Paul Newman' dials. The nickname stuck, and with it the slow-selling dial of the 1960s became the most coveted configuration of the vintage Daytona.

Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward and a boy named James Cox

Paul Newman was already one of the biggest film stars in the world when he trained for the racing film Winning, released in 1969, and caught the motorsport bug. He went on to race seriously, winning four national championships with the Sports Car Club of America, finishing second overall at the 24 Hours of Le Mans on June 10, 1979, in a Porsche 935 shared with Dick Barbour and Rolf Stommelen, and, at 70, winning his class at the 1995 24 Hours of Daytona.

His wife, the actress Joanne Woodward, chose a steel reference 6239 for him in 1968, as his interest in racing was taking hold. She had the caseback engraved 'DRIVE CAREFULLY ME', a wry note about his new hobby. The watch, case number 2,005,325, has a white exotic dial with black registers and red accents, and an inventory number on a lug suggests it was bought from a New York jeweler. Newman wore it daily for some 15 years, and was photographed wearing it on a leather strap for a 1972 book.

In the summer of 1984 an 18-year-old named James Cox, then the boyfriend of Newman's daughter Nell, was working on the family's treehouse in Westport, Connecticut. Newman asked him the time so he could set his watch. Cox said he did not have a watch. Newman took off the Daytona and handed it over: 'If you remember to wind this, it tells pretty good time.'

Cox wore it every day through college. Only years later, once he understood what it had become, did he put it in a safe deposit box. By then Newman had moved on to other Daytonas, including a reference 6263 inscribed 'DRIVE SLOWLY JOANNE'.

Twelve minutes in New York

In 2017 Cox decided to sell, with the support of Nell Newman, who wrote a letter attesting to the watch's provenance. Cox said he believed Newman, who did not hoard possessions, would want it put to good use, and the lion's share of the proceeds was pledged to the Nell Newman Foundation. It was the first time the watch had been offered since it left the Newman family's circle, nearly 50 years after Woodward bought it.

On October 26, 2017, it was offered at auction in New York with an estimate in excess of $1 million. The opening bid of $1 million was immediately answered by a bid of $10 million. Bidding ran for 12 minutes, nearly ended at $15 million, and finished in a two-way showdown. The hammer fell at $15.5 million, and with the buyer's premium the price was $17,752,500, paid by an anonymous telephone bidder.

That was the most ever paid for a wristwatch at auction, far above the previous record of $11.1 million for a steel Patek Philippe reference 1518 in November 2016. At the time, a typical 6239 with a Paul Newman dial was selling for roughly $100,000 to $120,000.

What a standard 6239 'Paul Newman' brings

Newman's own watch is a one-off. Ordinary 6239s with exotic dials, the ones that never belonged to anyone famous, form a market of their own, and condition and dial color drive it. Several have sold at public auction in New York in recent years with their results published.

In June 2022, a steel 6239 from about 1968 with a black exotic dial and white registers sold for $195,300 against an estimate of $80,000 to $160,000. In June 2023, a fresh-to-market, well-preserved steel example from 1968 with a white exotic dial sold for $381,000 against an estimate of $120,000 to $240,000. In June 2024, a steel example from about 1968 in the same configuration as Newman's own watch, white dial with black registers and red 'Daytona' text, sold for $431,800 against an estimate of $200,000 to $400,000.

Those results, not the 2017 record, are the realistic picture of the reference. The gap between $431,800 and $17.75 million is the price of a story: the same dial, the same caliber, the same steel case, separated by a caseback engraving and a treehouse.

The numbers

Caliber

Valjoux 72 base (Rolex 722 / 722-1), manual wind, 17 jewels

Case size

36 mm to 36.5 mm, depending on source

Pushers

Pump, non-screw-down

Production

About 1963 to 1969

Exotic-dial production

Estimated 2,000 to 3,000 across the early Daytona references

Newman's case number

2,005,325

Timeline

1. 1962

   Rolex becomes official timekeeper of Daytona International Speedway.

2. 1963

   Rolex introduces the reference 6239, the first Cosmograph.

3. 1965

   The Daytona name and the first 'exotic' dials appear; the screw-down-pusher 6240 follows.

4. 1968

   Joanne Woodward buys Paul Newman a steel 6239, engraved 'DRIVE CAREFULLY ME'.

5. 1969

   Newman's racing film Winning is released; 6239 production ends around this year.

6. Jun 10, 1979

   Newman finishes second overall at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

7. 1984

   Newman gives his 6239 to James Cox while Cox works on the family treehouse.

8. 1988

   Rolex ends the manual-wind Daytona and moves to an automatic movement.

9. 1995

   At 70, Newman wins his class at the 24 Hours of Daytona.

10. Sep 26, 2008

    Paul Newman dies in Westport, Connecticut.

11. Oct 26, 2017

    Newman's 6239 sells at auction in New York for $17,752,500, a record for any wristwatch.

12. Dec 12, 2020

    Newman's later Daytona, a reference 6263 engraved 'DRIVE SLOWLY JOANNE', sells at auction for $5,475,000.

13. Jun 2022

    A standard steel 6239 Paul Newman, black dial, sells at auction in New York for $195,300.

14. Jun 2023

    A standard steel 6239 Paul Newman from 1968, white dial, sells at auction in New York for $381,000.

15. Jun 2024

    A standard steel 6239 Paul Newman in the same configuration as Newman's own sells at auction in New York for $431,800.

The world in 1963

• Mar 22, 1963

  The Beatles release their debut album, Please Please Me.

• Jun 16, 1963

  Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space.

• Aug 28, 1963

  Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his address at the March on Washington.

• Nov 22, 1963

  President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas.

• Mar 2, 1969

  Concorde makes its first test flight, in Toulouse.

• Jul 20, 1969

  Apollo 11 lands on the Moon.

• Aug 15, 1969

  The Woodstock festival opens in New York State.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Rolex Cosmograph Daytona 'Paul Newman' Ref. 6239 is number 13 of 100 in the watches entries of the FLOAT 100. 54 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (1 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The 'Paul Newman' dial was a slow seller in the 1960s; dealers struggled to move it.
• Paul Newman gave away his famous watch because a teenager working on his treehouse did not own one.
• The 2017 sale opened at $1 million, and the very next bid was $10 million.
• Newman, the namesake of the dial, finished second overall at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1979, at 54.
• Newman's later Daytona, a reference 6263 engraved 'DRIVE SLOWLY JOANNE', sold for $5,475,000 in 2020.
• Only about one in twenty early Daytonas left the factory with the exotic dial.
• When Newman's watch sold in 2017, a typical 6239 Paul Newman was trading for about $100,000 to $120,000.