Cosmograph Daytona "Panda"
The one everything else answers to
Reference image
Reference images, courtesy Bulang & Sons. My own photography is on the way.
- Reference
- 6265
- Production
- 1974 (est.)
- Acquired
- 2026, Ex-Alfredo
- Brand
- Rolex
The hero of the collection. A 1974 manual-wind Daytona with the coveted MK1 bezel and a low-set "ROC" silver dial gone gently tropical, its black registers warming toward brown the way only decades can manage. Unpolished, with sharp original lines; it has lived as a safe queen and it shows. It runs a touch thicker than what I usually reach for, but the light bracelet balances it on the wrist.
Nothing here is listed for sale. If a piece speaks to you, it is a conversation.
How it found me
I was hunting a honeycomb Oyster Perpetual from the fifties and had an appointment with a dealer who never showed. That turned into a disappointed stroll through the halls of Miami's jewelry district, where I noticed a closed store with a 1940s Rolex box on a shelf in the back. I hit the Ring doorbell and met Alfredo of Tumi Time, a legendary watchmaker, fixer, and collector. I bought this watch out of his personal safe, the one he kept through Miami's boom years in the eighties. He has another 6265 in yellow gold that I hope to acquire one day.