What's the "most Daytona" dial?

[PenDelicate]

Think of a Daytona dial. Now choose the abstract dial in this graphic that most resembles the Daytona you thought of:

dials-small by Tom Kennedy, on Flickr

And before reading on, do please vote in the poll (if you're inclined to do so) so that your opinion isn't cluttered with what follows.

Firstly, terminology. I thought those things on the dial were, "Subdials," but good ol' Rolex says otherwise. Rolex calls them, "Counters," and the timing ring along the perifery of the counter is called the, "Counter ring." So lets call A and C, "Counter-contrast" dials with the whole counter contrasting in tone with the dial, while B and D are, "Ring-contrast," dials, where the counter-ring alone contrasts with the dial tone.

All 4-digit Daytonas are counter-constrast dials. ("All," here is misleading; everything in this post is from lazy, hobbyist Googling, not scholarly research, so there'll surely be exceptions to prove just about everything wrong.) It's the defining look of the 4-digit Daytona. Counter-contrast remained while all about it changed: minute rings, bezels, pushers, crowns, text, font, lume, the lot.

Here, for example, are 15 variants of the 6239, from the excellent site, https://www.vintagedaytona.com/en/reference-guide

4digit-small by Tom Kennedy, on Flickr

OK, there's one in there that's not counter-contrast: the counters are the same tone as the dial. But as a rule, the 6239, and 6240, and 6241 and all the other 4-digits Daytonas are counter-contrast.

Then in 1988, Rolex introduced the 5-digit Zenith Daytona and completely abandonned counter-contrast, replacing it with ring-contrast. Here is a (highly incomplete) sample of the 5-digit Daytonas:

5digit-small by Tom Kennedy, on Flickr

Again, there are some non-contrasting dials, but ring-contrast is the defining look of the 5-digit.


Year 2000 saw the release of the 6-digit Daytona, with not only the delightful return of counter-contrast but for the first time Rolex produced both counter-contrast and ring-contrast in parallel. Here are all 39 variants of the 6-digit Daytona scraped from Rolex.com this afternoon:

modern-daytonas-small by Tom Kennedy, on Flickr

With just two non-contrasting dials, the split between counter-contrast and ring-contrast isn't too uneven, with 21 counter-contrast to 16 ring-contrast.

So if you voted A or C, you might lean towards the vintage look of the Daytona as its default form; if you chose B or D, then the Zenith Daytona may be the wellspring of Daytonaness for you.

Some quick notes on the modern Daytona, just looking at that array of 39 beauties above.

Firstly, with only two full-steel models among the 39, the modern Daytona is overwhelmingly a precious-metal model.

Secondly, there are no steel or platinum counter-contrast variants.

Thirdly, there are no white-dialled counter-contrast variants.

I'm guessing that D will be clear winner (thank you, Mr Panda) with A a distant second (thank you, Mr Newman), and B and C will barely twitch the needle.