Most Daytonas are bought to be seen. The 116519 is the one that hides. Its 40 mm case and bezel are 18 ct white gold, which from across a room looks like steel, and it sat on a leather strap rather than a gold bracelet1,2.
It is also easy to confuse with its own successor. The 116519LN, introduced in 2017, has a black ceramic bezel and a rubber-coated Oysterflex bracelet11,21. Same gold, same number, different watch. What follows is what the 116519 is, when it was made, what the Beach versions are, what it sells for and how to check one.
From the 16519 to the Oysterflex
Rolex launched the Cosmograph in 19637,8. The white-gold Daytona on a strap is younger. In the Zenith era, when the Daytona used a Rolex-modified El Primero movement, Rolex made two gold Daytonas on leather: the yellow-gold 16518 and the white-gold 165195,27.
In March 2000, at Baselworld, Rolex launched calibre 4130, its own chronograph movement, and a new generation of Daytonas with six-digit references5,7. The first white-gold model of that generation was the 116519, again on leather2. The white-gold Daytona on a white-gold bracelet, the 116509, followed in 20042,5.
In 2017 the gold Daytonas moved to the Oysterflex, and the white-gold version became the 116519LN7,11,21. In 2023 the calibre 4131 generation replaced it with the 126519LN7,12,28. Rolex now fits every Daytona with either an Oyster bracelet or an Oysterflex. Leather has gone13,14.
When it was made
The start is settled: 2000. Gray & Sons dates the 116519 to the 2000 launch2, and Sotheby's and Bonhams have both catalogued 116519s as «circa 2000»6,9. One reference site says 200420. It is alone, and it is the same site that puts the 116519LN on a leather strap, which it never was11,20.
The end is less tidy. Gray & Sons says 2015 and Wristbuzz says 20162,20. Rolex's own site gives a third witness. An archived copy shows the 116519 in the catalogue in July 201510. By March 2016 the same address served a page whose preview image was a different Daytona, the two-tone 11652319. That fits 2015 better than 2016, so we write «about 2015». Rolex has never published the date.
Be careful with dated papers. A warranty card records when the watch was sold, and gold Daytonas could sit in a jeweller's case for years. Sotheby's offered a Beach Daytona, catalogued as circa 2000, whose papers confirm a sale on 18 August 20126. A card from 2016 does not prove the reference was still made in 2016.
The movement
Calibre 4130 was Rolex's first in-house chronograph movement4,7. It uses a column wheel and a vertical clutch, runs at 28,800 vibrations an hour and holds about 72 hours of power reserve, up from roughly 54 hours in the Zenith-based calibre 40304,5. It has 44 jewels4,6. It was also the first Rolex movement with the Parachrom hairspring4,7, which Rolex says resists shocks and temperature changes better1.
The chronograph measures to an eighth of a second. Elapsed minutes and hours sit at 3 and 9 o'clock and the running seconds at 61. On Rolex's 2013 page the watch was a certified Swiss chronometer, tested by COSC1. The tighter −2/+2 seconds a day standard came later: Rolex redefined its Superlative Chronometer certification in 2015, and the 116519LN of 2017 carried it11,29.
The Beach Daytonas
The 116519 came with sober dials, among them black, slate, silver, white, mother-of-pearl and meteorite1,16,17,30. Then there are four that are not sober at all. The «Beach» Daytonas were 116519s with pastel dials and matching straps: yellow mother-of-pearl, pink mother-of-pearl, a blue stone and green chrysoprase3,4,6. Sotheby's lists them as «Champagne Nacre» and «Candy Rose» mother-of-pearl, turquoise («Kallait») and chalcedony6. The straps were lizard3,4.
They appeared with the new generation around 20003,6,9. When they left the catalogue is not documented; one dealer says the mid-2000s3. Sotheby's says they divided opinion on release and were made in relatively low numbers6. None of our sources gives a production figure.
116519 or 116519LN
The two watches share a case metal, a size and a calibre, and almost nothing else on the outside1,11. If you came here looking for the LN, this is the difference.
The 116519LN was presented at Baselworld in March 2017 with a black Cerachrom bezel, an Oysterflex bracelet and an Oysterlock clasp11,21. aBlogtoWatch reported a launch price of USD 28,800 and Monochrome EUR 26,15011,21. It kept calibre 413011,12 and was replaced in 202312,28. Its successor, the 126519LN with calibre 4131, listed at USD 44,800 in the US on 14 October 202618.
Chrono24 files both under one reference page, so a search for «116519» returns a page that mixes the two. On the first page we read from July 2024, 45 of 62 priced listings were titled as an LN, an Oysterflex, a rubber or a ceramic watch; in February 2026 it was 26 of 5630,31. Read every listing title before you read the price.
What it costs
Rolex no longer sells the 116519, and we found no Rolex list price for it. One dealer puts the Beach versions at about USD 30,000 at launch3. That is one source, and we have not been able to check it.
Second-hand, we can only measure asking prices, and asking prices are not sale prices. Chrono24 files both watches under one page, and the mix shifts: in July 2024, 45 of 62 priced listings on the first page were titled as an LN, and in February 2026 only 26 of 5630,31. We therefore follow the listings titled as an LN. Their median rose from USD 40,000 in July 2024 to USD 42,938 in August 2025, about 7.3 per cent, and to USD 45,609 in February 2026, another 6.2 per cent16,30,31. The median of everything on the page, Beach watches included, moved the same way, from USD 40,000 to USD 41,925 and USD 45,87816,30,31. Both windows point up, but both figures describe the LN more than the leather watch.
The leather watch with an ordinary dial sits lower. Five listings for leather-strap 116519s with black or slate dials asked between USD 23,992 and USD 26,495 in January and August 202515,16. A listing for a 2002 black-dial example asked USD 24,500 in August 2025 and USD 25,750 in February 202616,30. At auction, a 2005 black-dial 116519 sold for GBP 15,950 before buyer's premium at Watch Collecting in October 202617.
The Beach dials are a different market. Sotheby's Hong Kong sold two Beach Daytonas from 2001 in September 2026, listed by EveryWatch with turquoise and blue dials, for about USD 133,800 and USD 114,200 including premium, in EveryWatch's conversion17. Bonhams sold a Pink Beach for HK$381,000 including premium in 20229, and Sotheby's estimated a set of all four at USD 200,000 to 400,0006.
The dubious part
In 2000 Rolex put its new racing chronograph on pastel lizard and offered it in pink. Opinion divided6. A quarter of a century later, collectors pay six figures for one at auction17. Somewhere there is a jeweller who talked a client out of the turquoise one, and he has not forgotten it.