Rolex Mother of Pearl Watches

Just yesterday, Sotheby's auctioned this one of a kind Rolex by master watchmaker Antonio Preziouso for $19,396.In the late 1970s, Franck Muller and his friend Antonio Preziuso were training together at the Ecole D'Horlogerie De Genève. The pair each modified one Rolex Oyster watch to become a perpetual calendar moon phase watch with retrograde date.Franck Muller's example was in steel, Preziuso's, was in gold.Both watches are illustrated and described in Dowling & Hess, Rolex, The Best of Time, Schiffer, Second Edition, pp.338-339.In the book, the authors describe this watch as follows: 'This [Preziuso's] is the only 18k model and is even more unusual in that it has a star dial. Although not built in the Rolex factory these two pieces [Muller's and Preziuso's] typify the attention to detail in a way that would have pleased Hans Wilsdorf'"5/13/03

More than half a year ago, about the Rolex Sea-Dweller Deep Sea Jacques Piccard edition, a Dutch initiative from Philipp Stahl () and Jerrel Manbodh (). Just today, had one of the 86 pieces on auction, number 60 of 86. When still available, these watches changed owner for 12.900 Euro. The official Rolex Sea-Dweller Deep Sea Jacques Piccard website is , which is still on-line and contains some more background information regarding these watches.Number 60/86 is not a coincidence…?Ǭ?Number 60 stands for the successful deep sea diving mission in 1960 and 86 is the age of Jacques Piccard, who passed away last year. The auctioned watch includes an original US Navy envelope, stamped in 1960 and signed by Jacques Piccard himself.The fetched 39.526 USD (or 40.000 CHF) will be used by the Piccard family to be able to document and maintain all archives by Jacques Piccard.Information about the auction can be found .