Mondani’s Moon Phases Rolex 6062 with Black Diamond Dial at Monaco Legend Auctions

Image 1: Famous Rolex model 6062 with balck diamond dial at auction, ©Antiquorum, ©Monaco Legend Group

‘Homework: check - time to play!’ is what Rolex founder and ‘Governing Director’ Hans Wilsdorf might have thought, when he delivered the Datejust in 1945 after 4 decades of dedication to solving the main problems that set wristwatches apart from pocket watches. How else could one explain that he went on, from relentless focus on the essential to create one of the most playfully designed men’s watches ever to bear the Rolex name on the dial.

The Datejust was first to serially provide ‘Officially Certified’ chronometer precision from a small movement, thanks to superb craftsmanship and its ‘Perpetual’ rotor, reliably protected by the ‘Oyster’ case.  The watch conveniently displayed all relevant information at just one glance, facilitated by the sweep hand and a practical date window at 3 o’clock. The grand achievement was celebrated with an exclusive ‘Jubilée’ bracelet for the watch along with the founder’s memoirs.

Image 2: In 1945, Rolex celebrated it’s 40 anniversary with the introduction of the Datejust and Hans Wilsdorf’s ‘Vademecum’. In private, Wilsdorf was a collector of historic pocket watches, often in richly enameled cases. His collection was published in Alfred Chapuis’ 1944 Montres et Emaux de Genève, ©Rolex

80 years on, the Datejust is still in the DNA of most Rolexes and its concept continues to serve as a model for competitors galore. Faith in the original strategy and focused perseverance were the key ingredients to this success. However, Wilsdorf’s watches were also somewhat functional, while he himself was decidedly leaning towards a pleasure driven lifestyle. With his wife Frances, he shared a passion for antiques. His personal taste were beautifully crafted pocket watches in richly decorated cases.

The definition of luxurious wristwatches however, was set by Patek Philippe already four years before the Datejust in 1941. Instead of focusing on the essentials, Patek’s model 1526 featured a perpetual calendar with a display of the phases of the moon, in addition to the - likewise accurate and reliable - read of the time. Model 1518 went even further as it was a chronograph with perpetual calendar and moon phases at the same time. Like the Datejust for Rolex in 1945, Patek’s complicated timepieces from 1941 were momentous for their makers.

Image 3: Model 1518 (left) and 1526 (right) were decades ahead of their time and followed a philosophy that sharply contrasted from Rolex. Audemars Piguet was the only other maker to produce a handful of perpetual calendar wristwatches in the period, ©Christie’s

It is unclear whether Wilsdorf seriously planned to compete Patek or whether he just wanted a little marvel under the roof of his Brand that would please himself and his equals. At any rate, in the back half of the 1940’s he developed two models, that took a page from Patek’s book by displaying the calendar and the phases of the moon in a similar style. While the Rolexes were just simple calendars, they were wound automatically and thus true to the Brand. Model 6062 was even housed in the archetypical Oyster case, while Model 8171 was a dress watch with a snap-on case back. Counterintuitively, the dress watch was the bigger of the two and, perhaps even more surprisingly, Rolex created two different movements with the same features, the smaller of which was built into the Oyster case of model 6062.

Image 4: 1949 Rolex models 6062 ’Cosmograph’ (left) with screw down case back and ‘Super Oyster’ crown, right 8171 with snap on case back. Model 6062 measured 36 mm, dress watch model 8171 had a 38 mm diameter ©Christie’s

While the new Rolex models technically did not match the Pateks, they excelled their immediate competitors. Jaeger Le Coultre and Omega also sold watches that tried to adopt the evergreen aesthetics of Patek’s perpetual calendar into the realm of their own technical capabilities. Neither was wound automatically or available in a watertight watchcase like the Rolexes.

Image 5: Jaeger Le Coultre Triple Date (left) and Omega ‘Cosmic’ (right) manually wound with snap on case backs, ©Antiquorum

Still, the new Rolex models 6062 and 8171 were not a success. Less than 200 examples of either reference have appeared on the collector’s market to date. One can only speculate whether it was a high price in combination with a vague Brand fit or technical problems that caused the issue. Model 6062 was first delivered with ‘Super Oyster’ crowns that proved a failure as they had no screw down thread. Additionally, the setting knobs for the calendar module were a weak point too.

Production of both models was discontinued in 1954, just 5 years after their introduction. The, then new automatically wound 1030 caliber was never fitted with a triple date calendar or a moon phases module. Instead, it was used to push a new generation of sports models that would define Rolex going forward, thereby taking the franchise from functional to emotional in a way that continues to be the envy of the world of watches today: the Explorer, the Submariner and the GMT-Master.

Image 6: Sports models Explorer, Submariner and GMT-Master were original designs that triggered the imagination and built on the functional advantages of the ‘Oyster’ concept at the same time. The moon phases Rolex did not provide the same Brand fit, ©Rolex

Today, Rolex watches with triple calendar and moon phases belong to the holy grail of vintage watch collecting. Their beauty, rarity and wearability have sparked the longing of important personalities ranging from Karl Lagerfeld to Nicholas Cage and have so driven prices to the stratosphere.

Image 7: Beautiful example of reference 6062 in steel with a two-tone relief dial by Cadrans Stern Frères, ©Christie’s

The watch on offer by Monaco Legend Group is kind of a unicorn among unicorns. The majority of the known pieces are made of gold and bear applied star shaped hour markers on their dials. Second to that are steel watches that usually have punched dials with a mix of dart indexes and Arabic numerals which, together with the pearl crown stand out in relief. Very few examples are housed in rose gold cases. Almost all watches, across case metals have off-white dials in one or two tones with ‘grainée’ or brushed surfaces.  Genuine silver sunburst dials do exist, but it is uncertain whether they might not have been post-added.

Image 8: Different dial configurations with punched or applied hour markers in star, dart, pyramid or ‘dagger’ style shapes, ©Christies, ©Antiquorum, ©Phillips

Over the past 20 years, just a few watches with believable black dials have come up. All of them fetched enormous prices at the time. None of them had diamond indexes, however.

Image 9: Rolex references 6062 with black dials are an ultra-rare sight per se, even at auction. A detail: it is said, watches that left the factory with black dials should not only have black enameled moon discs but ocher date discs too, ©Antiquorum, ©Christe’s

Besides the example on auction in Monaco in October, just one other with diamond hour markers is known to exist. It belonged to Bao Dai, the last emperor of Vietnam who purchased it alongside the Geneva Conference in 1954 that left him without an empire – but with a watch. The store was Philippe Beguin, a prominent Rolex partner at the time. The legend says, the royal, known to accept only the best of the best rejected everything he was offered with so that the devastated storekeeper sent for the ‘Governing Director’ himself for support. The Bao Dai Rolex is what came out. It was offered for the last time in public during the 'Geneva Watch Auction Five' of Phillips in Association with Bacs and Russo in 2017, where it was sold for five million Swiss Francs.

Image 10: Bao Dai and his famous Rolex, ©Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo

The watch in the auction now first came to fame when it was sold as part of the legendary collection of Italian publisher and Rolex enthusiast Guido Mondani in 2006 through Antiquorum auctioneers. It was advertised back then as the top lot of the event but ended up second to a split-second chronograph with a standard movement of which 12 examples are believed to exist. The chronograph went on to become the first Rolex to break the million mark, but that was way before the sale of the Bao Dai. The last such Rolex split seconds chronograph offered in public achieved € 3.3 million at Monaco Legend Auctions in April 2024.

Image 11: Moonphases Rolex from the Mondai collection on auction at Monaco Legend Group in October, ©Monaco Legend Group

So, it will be exciting to see how the Mondani moon phases Rolex will do this time. It achieved a price of 470.000 Swiss Francs against a high estimate of CHF 350.000 in 2006, before that it was first sold at auction nine years earlier, also by Antiquorum in Geneva in 1997. Back then it went for 120.000 Francs. Hence, there were no regrets and none are expected this time around.

Obviously, the important and well documented provenance give the Bao Dai an edge, since it seems unknown who first delivered the Mondani watch into auction. In terms of condition, the two timepieces are great with beautiful dials. I was lucky to hold them both in my own hands and they all bear heavy cases with sharp edges, deep stampings and unmolested reeds to their backs. The screw down crown of the Mondani watch appaers to be a service part, as the Bao Dai watch bears a 'Super Oyster' one and both watches were produced in the same year.

Image 12: Illustration, comparing the two diamond dials, Mondani (left) and Bao Dai (right), ©Addison Time

There is a difference between the dials, however that would speak for the Mondani watch in my view. The diamonds are even hours on the Bao Dai dial and uneven ones on the Mondani dial. Consequently, the pearl crown is no longer the hero on the Bao Dai but has to stand back below the noon brilliant, thus pushing everything else down too. As a result, the constant second around the moon phases display gets more crowded. That impairs the aesthetics slightly since the tips of the 5/7 dart indexes seem to extend into the engine turned area too.

But my comment might not sound humble enough given, we are talking about the top two examples of a breed that in itself is like a fata morgana to most!