Prior to the 1980s, the hottest thing on the market was old gold Rolexes like this one. They were the epitome of taste, elegant and unassuming, worlds away from the chunky, sporty Sub or GMT, and couldn’t sell fast enough to meet customer demand. However, as tastes changed and watch sizes grew larger, the Crown's sports watches came back into fashion—and there they’ve stayed.

Take the most famous of all Rolex sports watches as an example: Paul Newman’s Daytona. Back when his Daytona was made in the 1960s, it—and its sporting cousins, the Submariner or GMT—was meant to be a tool, used hard and then discarded when no longer functional. Those sports watches that were kept were shunted into the back of a drawer somewhere, when winding a watch every day proved to be too much of a nuisance.

There they stayed for decades, until tastes changed, and sports models like the Submariner Reference 5513, GMT Master Reference 1675, and, yes, the “Paul Newman” Daytona, became fashionable. Surviving examples that had languished in the darkness of drawers, or in the backs of safes, were pulled out and given new life on the wrist. A couple of years ago a man took a Daytona that he had bought back in the 70s for $543 to , only to find out that it was worth well in the six figures.

And as for Paul Newman’s Daytona, well… we all know what happened to it.

But old gold Rolexes like this one still tick away, waiting for the day when they will become fashionable again. We think that time is now. Because a Rolex is a Rolex, whether it was made twenty, fifty, or even ninety years ago.

And watches from the period when this one was produced are some of the most interesting Rolex ever made—not just horologically, but historically as well.

Because back then, no one else was doing what Rolex was. The manufacture was the first to produce a fully waterproof watch after decades of trial and error. Early Rolex “Oysters," the predecessors to the sports watches that we know and love, were worn by race car drivers and soldiers—the Paul Newmans and James Bonds of their day. 

With a 32mm pink gold case, this watch simply resonates with understated elegance. And yet one look at the words engraved on the case back and on the movement itself speak to use in a sporting life: “for all climates,” “20 World Records.” A watch a handsome and robust as this one deserves to be worn by a new generation of sporting gentlemen.