The First Rolex Charity Auction, With 4 One-of-a-Kind ‘Four Seasons’ Daytonas, the Record It Broke, and Where the Money Went

On 28 September 2026 at Raffles London, Rolex staged the first charity auction in the brand's history alongside Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo, under the title One-of-a-Kind Auction: The Four Seasons. Four gem-set Oyster Perpetual Cosmograph Daytonas went under the hammer, one of one each, one per season. The Rolex Four Seasons auction closed at GBP 37.3 million in total, or roughly USD 49.5 million.

The Top Lot and the Bottom Lot Finished GBP 3.5 Million Apart

All four are 40 mm Daytonas running the same Calibre 4131. What separates them is the metal, the bezel stones and the natural hardstone dial. The closing prices did not fall in an even line: the top three sat within GBP 300,000 of one another, and the fourth dropped away on its own.

Final prices from Phillips. The baht figures are an approximate conversion, not a price quoted in baht.

Why Did Spring Close Almost a Third Below the Other 3?

Spring is the white gold piece, with a purple sapphire bezel and a mint-green chrysoprase dial, and it closed at GBP 6.8 million. That is GBP 3.2 million under Winter in third place, or about 32% less. Phillips published no pre-sale estimate for any of the four, so there is no benchmark saying which lot beat expectations, and no winner was named.

GBP 37.3 Million in 65 Minutes Works Out at GBP 574,000 a Minute

There were only 4 lots to call, and the whole sale took 1 hour and 5 minutes with Aurel Bacs on the rostrum. Averaged out, that is roughly GBP 574,000 per minute, or GBP 9.325 million per lot — a pace the watch auction market has not seen in a single sale before.

Averages calculated by the Luxe Addict team, dividing GBP 37.3 million by the 65-minute sale and by the 4 lots.

Not One of the 4 Winners Raised a Paddle in the Room

More than 250 guests were in the room that night, Mick Jagger and Jon Bon Jovi among them, yet all four lots went to telephone bidders. Some of those phone bidders were sitting in the room and chose to bid by handset to stay anonymous. Leonardo DiCaprio, there as a Rolex Testimonee, bid on several lots and went home with none.

The Old Benchmark Was One Patek Philippe at CHF 31 Million

Until now the figure everyone quoted was the Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime 6300A, which closed at CHF 31 million at Only Watch in 2019 — a record for a single watch, not for a whole sale. Phillips therefore described this result as a record for a single consignment to a charity auction rather than a record for one watch. We mapped what the market had paid for a gem-set Daytona before this sale ahead of the auction, which shows how far that night sat above the old baseline.

Only Watch 2019 Sold 50 Lots and Still Came Up Short

Only Watch 2019 raised CHF 38.593 million across 50 lots. Rolex's night raised about CHF 41.15 million from 4. That is the detail that makes the Four Seasons number land: it did not win on volume.

No Buyer's Premium Was Charged, So Every Pound Reached the Charities

An auction normally adds a buyer's premium on top of the hammer price, and that share is the auction house's revenue. The conditions of sale for this one stated plainly that no buyer's premium applied, so the full amount went to charity, split evenly between two organisations.

• Federer Foundation — Roger Federer's foundation, working on early childhood education in southern Africa and Switzerland

• Re:wild — a biodiversity conservation organisation co-founded by Leonardo DiCaprio
  
  

In What Capacity Were Both Men There?

Roger Federer and Leonardo DiCaprio are both Rolex Testimonees and both attended in person that evening, which is why the destination of each half of the money is tied directly to them rather than being a conventional choice of charity.

101 Stones per Watch, and 4 Dials Cut From 4 Different Natural Rocks

What makes these four impossible to repeat is not the phrase "one of one" but the natural stone used for the dials and sub-dials, no two pieces of which carry the same pattern. Each watch is set with 101 stones in total: 54 brilliant-cut diamonds across the lugs and crown guards, 36 trapeze-cut stones on the bezel and 11 more on the sub-dial rings.

What Do the Reference Numbers Tell You?

The letters after the reference encode the materials and stones, not the season. SARO on Summer and SAVL on Spring differ by their gem set, while TML on Autumn comes from tourmaline. Reading the suffix is how collectors tell Rolex's gem-set pieces apart without looking at a photograph.

What This Sum Says to the Watch Market

None of these four had ever been sold anywhere before. They were made for this sale and will not be made again. For collectors, the thing to watch from here is not who bought them but the day one of them returns to the market, because that is the day everyone finds out whether those prices were charity prices or watch prices · Read what was known about the four before the sale in Rolex Four Seasons, and see another Rolex still waiting on a Thai price in Rolex Padellone