Rolex Daytona New Arrival!

Snagged a pretty good deal on a 2004 model F serial Rolex Stainless Steel Daytona Ref 116520, box, papers, full set from the original owner. The watch has been worn a fair bit so its got some scuffs and swirls but very good for an 8 year old watch, I'll see how timekeeping is on it but it looks like its running great at the moment.

This is actually a much nicer watch in person than it looks on the internet, I had a chance to play with my brother's black dial recently which pushed me towards getting one of these, at 40mm, it wears more like 38-39mm, very much the size Dennis tends to like his chronographs, and its remarkable flat, and well balanced, sitting very close to the wrist, and being very comfortable, and a solid, but reasonable 140g. Once you get past the mythology and the BS that surrounds this watch and get down to its rather exceptional movement and impressive build quality, this is actually a cracking good thing to wear as a daily, waterproof, modern beater.

Picture of it sitting in its box, this is actually one of the earlier models, with the thin hands (early F serials were thin, later F serials onwards were "fat hands") and it also lacks the ROLEXROLEXROLEXROLEX in the chapter ring, and features the earlier style of pressure fit clasp.

Heck of a good deal😀

Yes, it is a nice watch to wear - used to own a black dial daytona and sold it to continue to fund more vintage omegas! I don't regret selling it but miss the watch. It did wear smaller than its measured size because the dial diameter was on the small side. My other problem with the black dial was it was difficult to read under certain light conditions and angles though the white dial version shouldn't have that problem.

Its not bad actually, the thin hands quite add to it, they're not as shiny as the fat hands on my brother's 2005 black dial so they're a bit more readable, but it really does confirm that the most readable chronograph dial ever is still the Speedmaster Pro.

One question... do you guys know if Rolex AD's keep spare links in stock? My paw is starting to lose blood-flow.

My local place would order it and it would be there in less than a week. Others perhaps are not so fast.

Local place has none in stock, I'll see if the local used dealers have any... otherwise I'll just order. $85 from the AD apparently. Or I could just get my ass on the treadmill... there's that too.

Not gonna happen 😁

It'll be a lot quicker to order the link 😁

Got a Submariner link from Brisbane Vintage Watches, they didn't have any polished Daytona links, but Ronny let me have this one until he gets a Daytona link in, then I can swap them over. Works for me!

So very comfy this watch! I'm going to get it re-sealed and polished when I get the chance, won't do the full service just yet... Rolex charged ~1300 for my brother's black dial Daytona. The one part that concerns me is a very shallow, tiny hairline scratch on the crystal. Its the type 30 seconds and a tube of polywatch would solve on a plexi but this is sapphire... so I'm tempted to try some 3 micron and 0.5 micron diamond paste to polish it out. Any of you guys done that on a sapphire before?

Have you used a dry hand polishing cloth on it yet or is that just your paw prints all over 😁?