Rolex tends to move slowly and say little, so two firsts in one announcement is worth pausing on. The company is holding a charity auction, which it has never done, and it is selling four unique Cosmograph Daytonas to do it. Collectively they are called the Four Seasons, and each interprets Spring, Summer, Autumn or Winter through a different precious metal, a hardstone dial and a bezel set with coloured gemstones. The sale takes place in London on Monday 28 September 2026, conducted by Aurel Bacs of Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo, with all proceeds going to the Federer Foundation and Re:wild.
The watches are not new in the sense of being freshly designed. They were shown at Watches and Wonders earlier in the year, on an upper floor of the Rolex stand, where visitors could look but not photograph them. This is their first public appearance in pictures, and the first time the full specifications have been laid out. They are part of Rolex's Perpetual Planet Initiative, which is the frame the brand has chosen for the sale: watchmaking and gem-setting in service of causes it already supports through its testimonees.
Four references, four treatments
Each watch is built on the current Daytona and its automatic Calibre 4131, with a roughly 72-hour reserve and Superlative Chronometer certification. What changes is everything on the outside.
Spring is reference 126599 SAVL, in 18-carat white gold. The dial is cut from apple-green chrysoprase, with the three counters in purple lepidolite. The hour markers are eight baguette-cut and three square-cut purple sapphires in white-gold settings, the bezel carries 36 trapezoid-cut purple sapphires of about 5.57 carats, and 54 brilliant-cut diamonds run across the lugs and crown guards.
Summer, reference 126595 SARO, moves to 18-carat Everose gold with a turquoise dial and counters in heart of ruby. Its markers and bezel are pink sapphires, 36 trapezoid stones on the bezel totalling about 4.32 carats, with the same 54 diamonds on the lugs. It is the loudest of the four, the warm gold and turquoise doing most of the talking.
Autumn is reference 126598 TML, in 18-carat yellow gold. The dial is yellow mookaite, the counters green chrysoprase, and the gem-setting turns to green tourmalines, eight baguette and three square for the markers and 36 on the bezel at about 4.32 carats. Winter, reference 126596 SABV, is the only one in 950 platinum. Its dial is iridescent blue opal that shifts between blue, green and purple as the light moves, with lapis lazuli counters. Uniquely in the set, its markers are diamonds rather than coloured stones, while the bezel runs a gradient of 36 sapphires from blue to fuchsia.
Sold one at a time
The structural detail that matters for the sale is that the four are offered as separate lots rather than a single set. A collector can chase one season and leave the others, which widens the field of bidders and, in the ordinary logic of auctions, tends to produce a higher total than selling the group whole. Rolex has not said this is why, but the effect is the same, and it lets each watch find its own level.
The two beneficiaries sit on either side of the Perpetual Planet idea. The Federer Foundation, set up by Roger Federer, works on early and foundational learning for children in southern Africa and Switzerland. Re:wild, the conservation organisation co-founded by Leonardo DiCaprio, works with Indigenous peoples, local communities and other groups to protect and restore ecosystems. Proceeds are split evenly between them.
What it might bring
Nobody official will name a figure, and it would be unwise to guess four of them here. The reference point everyone knows is the Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime that sold for about 31 million Swiss francs in 2019, still the most expensive watch ever sold at auction. Whether a single gem-set Daytona gets near that is anyone's call. What is clear is that Rolex, a company that rarely lets its watches leave through the front door of a saleroom, has chosen to do exactly that, once, for a cause. That alone will pull a room.
Sources: SJX Watches, Watch Advice and Rolex.
