Rainbow Rolex sets new Australian watch auction record

This is done. Lot 1 has stopped and Australia has the most expensive new watch ever sold at auction.

The Rolex Cosmograph Daytona “Rainbow” that we flagged as a genuine record threat earlier this month finished under the hammer at $510,000, well within its estimate of $500,000 to $600,000.

Add First State Auctions’ 20% buyer’s premium and the winning bidder has committed to $612,000 before customs, fees or anything else.

The previous Australian benchmark was $450,000, set in late 2023 when the 1946 Patek Philippe Ref. 1436 were sold through First State’s Sydney rooms. This figure was quoted including premium, meaning the Patek was actually worth around $375,000.

Compare like for like and Rainbow took the hammer to $135,000. The difference over what the buyer actually paid is $162,000.

Before Patek, the mark belonged to a Paul Newman Daytona sold by Sotheby’s in Sydney, which tells you how narrow the pool of record-setting watches has been in this country.

Rainbow was always the most likely to break it. This is not a watch you walk in and buy. This is a watch that Rolex has decided to present to you.

Retail price is $324,700. The actual accessibility sits somewhere between rare and theoretical, as the 36 baguette-cut sapphires on the bezel have to be matched for color and quality before a single case can be signed.

The example sold is the 126598RBOW in 18 ct yellow gold on an Oyster bracelet, powered by caliber 4131, with diamond-set lugs and 11 sapphire hour markers on a black chronograph dial.

It came with a Rolex box, an international warranty card dated 2024 and a five-year manufacturer warranty. The first state rated it Very Good, with light wear on the bracelet and clasp. We saw it ourselves and it was brand new.

That warranty balance did more than appear on paper. This removes the single hesitation that typically slows down a six-figure pre-owned bid, which is when something goes wrong later on.

The strange thing about this market is that anything serious is shipped to Geneva or Hong Kong, as the local buyer pool is too small to support a real fight. It becomes difficult to argue with such a result.

Free insured international shipping and online-only bidding have quietly eliminated much of the profit the larger salerooms enjoyed, and timepieces like this now reach the same buyers whether the catalog is printed in Sydney or Switzerland.

There is a warning. Nothing on the lot page confirms whether the winner was Australian or not, and judging by the reference’s profile, the money would likely have come from offshore.

The record is Australian. There may not be a buyer.

The sweeping sale, consigned by an anonymous Australian tech founder, ran 28 watches with a combined estimate of more than $2 million, including a diamond-studded Richard Mille 016 and a pink gold Audemars Piguet Royal Oak. The second part of the collection will run till July 26.

Two seconds of DMARGE

When Rainbow came, she was made fun of. Too fast, too colorful, too far from a watch made for men who drive fast around Florida.

It has so far outperformed every serious vintage this country has ever sold, including the Paul Newman Daytona, which is a joke with a fairly tall setup.

This truly proves that scarcity beats taste. Nobody paid $612,000 for the sapphire. He paid it because Rolex wouldn’t sell him one, and because it’s the first time this exact reference has surfaced at auction anywhere.

Make something impossible to buy and the value will stop being appreciated. This becomes a queue-jumping fee.

Second auction starts tonight Jump up and take a look.