Industry News – Rolex Retrograde Calendar Watch by Antonio Preziouso

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