The four watches, with dials cut from natural stone and bezels set with sapphires and tourmalines, come to auction in London on 28 September. Phillips conducts the sale, and the full amount goes to the Federer Foundation and Re:wild.
The four watches were shown last April at Watches and Wonders, in a room on the upper floor of the Rolex booth that very few people entered and where no photography was permitted. The brand presented them without indicating what would become of them, and the answer did not arrive until September.
Phillips will sell them in London on Monday the 28th, as four separate lots rather than a single set. The full proceeds will be divided between the Federer Foundation, which has supported early education for children in Southern Africa and Switzerland since 2003, and Re:wild, the conservation organisation co-founded by Leonardo DiCaprio. The sale sits within the Perpetual Planet Initiative, the programme under which Rolex groups its environmental commitments.
Four dials, four seasons
Each watch interprets a season through its own combination of metal, stone and cut. Spring, reference 126599 SAVL, comes in 18-carat white gold, with a chrysoprase dial and lepidolite counters. Summer, the 126595 SARO, arrives in Everose gold over a turquoise dial whose counters are worked in heart of ruby. Autumn, the 126598 TML, pairs yellow gold with a dial of mookaite, an Australian jasper in reds and ochres, and counters of chrysoprase. Winter, the 126596 SABV, closes the series in 950 platinum, with blue opal on the dial and lapis lazuli in the counters.
The bezels follow the same logic: thirty-six trapeze-cut coloured stones on each watch, purple sapphires for spring, pink sapphires for summer, green tourmalines for autumn and, for winter, a gradient of sapphires running from blue to fuchsia. The hour markers repeat the bezel stone in baguette and square cuts, except in winter, where they are diamonds, and all four cases carry fifty-four brilliant-cut diamonds across the lugs and crown guards.
| Season | Reference | Case | Dial | Bezel |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spring | 126599 SAVL | 18 ct white gold | Chrysoprase, lepidolite counters | 36 trapeze-cut purple sapphires (approx. 5.57 ct) |
| Summer | 126595 SARO | 18 ct Everose gold | Turquoise, heart-of-ruby counters | 36 trapeze-cut pink sapphires (approx. 4.32 ct) |
| Autumn | 126598 TML | 18 ct yellow gold | Mookaite, chrysoprase counters | 36 trapeze-cut green tourmalines (approx. 4.32 ct) |
| Winter | 126596 SABV | 950 platinum | Blue opal, lapis lazuli counters | 36 sapphires in a blue-to-fuchsia gradient (approx. 5.57 ct) |
Stone dials, a house tradition from the seventies
Ornamental stone has a long history at Rolex. The brand began producing dials of this kind in the 1970s, and the Day-Date and Datejust references of that decade and the next left behind a long list of materials, among them lapis lazuli, malachite, onyx, coral, turquoise and the very chrysoprase that reappears here on spring. The association is well enough established that Phillips, the house now conducting the sale, has devoted editorial features of its own to it.
Working with these materials imposes conditions that steel does not. Each slab is cut from a block that arrives with its own veining, colour and fissures, so the result varies from one piece to the next and the workshop must adapt the cut to what the material will take. That is why these four dials cannot be reproduced: repeating the process with another block would yield four different watches.
The gem-setting architecture, by contrast, comes straight from the catalogue. When Rolex introduced the Daytona Rainbow in 2012, with references 116598 RBOW in yellow gold and 116599 RBOW in white gold, it established a scheme it has repeated in its dress versions ever since: thirty-six coloured stones around the bezel and a row of brilliants over the lugs and crown guards. The Four Seasons follow that same scheme, with trapeze cuts in place of baguettes.
The calibre 4131
Inside runs the calibre 4131, the automatic chronograph movement Rolex introduced in 2023 with the current generation of the Cosmograph Daytona, offering around 72 hours of power reserve and Superlative Chronometer certification. It is the same movement fitted to catalogue references, unmodified for the occasion, and all four watches share it.
The brand, this time as seller
The Rolex name has appeared in auction catalogues for decades, though always through watches resold by their owners, in transactions where the manufacture neither participates nor receives anything. The vintage Daytona alone sustains a considerable share of the major houses' calendars. On this occasion the brand itself is the consignor, and part of the specialist press has presented the fact as unprecedented in its history, although Rolex's own release does not use that word.
The decision follows two others that had already brought the company closer to the pre-owned market: the Certified Pre-Owned programme, launched in December 2022 with Bucherer, and the purchase of the retailer outright in August 2023. Authenticating a used watch, guaranteeing it for two years and displaying it in an official retailer's window amounts to taking part in how its price is formed.
What the London figures will say
Monday's results will travel quickly and call for some qualification. At a charity sale the buyer knows the full amount goes to two foundations, so part of what is paid corresponds to the donation rather than to the object. These four watches also have no basis for comparison, since no second example exists and there is no prior sales record on which to build an estimate. Phillips, in fact, had published no estimates as this piece went to press.
The catalogue Daytona, the steel one with the waiting list, answers to other variables. In Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and Spain it depends above all on the production Geneva allocates to each market, on boutique delivery times and on the supply available through the pre-owned channel, which accounts for most transactions in the region. Since Certified Pre-Owned arrived, that purchase can also be made over a counter, through authorised retailers such as EMWA, El Cronómetro and Peyrelongue Chronos in Mexico and Perodri Joyeros and Relojería Alemana in Spain, with factory verification and a two-year guarantee.
The evening of 28 September
According to SJX, the auction will take place within a gala dinner attended by several hundred guests, with the four watches offered one after another. Rolex retains nothing from the result, which is divided between the foundations of Roger Federer and Leonardo DiCaprio, both longstanding testimonees of the brand.
