On October 26, 2017, the final sale price of Paul Newman’s Rolex Cosmograph Daytona Ref.6239 was 17,752,500 dollars (commission included) at Philips WINNING ICONS. It set a new record. Watch fans know that Rolex Daytona Paul Newman is one of the most expensive Rolex watches, also one of the most luxury watches. To today, many still understand Rolex Daytona Paul Newman as the some designated model number. That’s wrong. It refers to the models whose counters have square scales and whose dial is the black and white dial. Rolex Daytona Paul Newman includes reference 6239, reference 6241, reference 6263, reference 6236 or more. Because of Paul Newman, Rolex Daytona watches bearing the two features have been popular for approx 48 years. Therefore, Rolex Daytona with black and white dial and square scales on the sub-dials are all called Rolex Daytona Paul Newman. It was equipped with Valjoux72, a manual chronograph movement.
Paul Newman is a Hollywood actor, a good husband, a good father. The film Winning was on in the USA in 1969. Paul Newman played a role of a racing driver Frank Capua. He experienced a lot of exciting, intense racing scenes in the film, and he became interested in speed racing. His wife Joanne Woodward, a Hollywood actress, got to know the news during filming, and then she selected a Rolex Daytona watch Ref.6239 for Paul Newman. To express her love, she entrusted to engrave three words “DRIVE CAREFULLY ME” on the case back. It may be produced during 1963 to 1969, and it was the first Daytona that was engraved with tachymeter scales on the bezel. It was fitted with exotic dial. After the film Winning was a big hit then, Paul Newman often wore his Daytona watch in public. Finally, a post made Rolex Daytona Ref.6239 famous and popular. In the post, Paul Newman put his head on his left fist. Rolex Cosmograph Daytona Ref.6239 on his left wrist impressed deeply on watch fans all over the world. After that, watch fans called it Rolex Daytona Paul Newman.
Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward’s daughter, Nell Potts (an alias) studied in her university. She fell in loved with James Cox, her classmate. Nell invited James to attend her family dinner. Paul asked James about the time unintentionally, and James told frankly him that he never wore a wristwatch. After that, Paul Newman took down his Rolex watch and said to him, “Well, here, here’s this watch. If you remember to wind it, it tells pretty good time.” Although Nell and James didn’t maintain the close relationship, Paul Newman never took back the watch.
James Cox was occupied in garden architecture with the Rolex watch for years. He didn’t know value of the Rolex watch until 1993. A Japanese saw James’s wristwatch and called immediately it “Paul Newman watch”. After that, he knew its value, so he locked it in a draw. James kept in touch with Nell, and they decided to auction it at Philips in 2016. The earnings would be given to Nell Newman Foundation and Newman’s Own Foundation. Accidentally, Philips auction got to know that Joanne Woodward bought another two Rolex Daytona Paul Newman dial watches for Paul Newman in different periods. Their case back both were engraved with DRIVE SLOWLY, JOANNE and DRIVE VERY SLOWLY, JOANNE.
