£14m watch
Hollywood star Paul Newman’s Rolex (which he gave away) is now the world’s most expensive
A ROLEX that once belonged to Paul Newman set a world record when it sold for £13.6million.
The timepiece had been estimated at $1million (£760,000) but fetched $17.8million – making it the most expensive wristwatch ever sold at auction.
The stainless-steel Daytona was bought by an anonymous bidder on the phone at Phillips auctioneers, in New York. The watch was originally given to Oscar-winner Newman by wife Joanne Woodward at the time he was filming the car racing movie Winning in 1968. His use of it sparked a craze among watch fans, who lent his name to that style of Daytona. Phillips said: “Demand skyrocketed for all models of Daytona, making it perhaps the most widely sought-after collectors’ watch up to the present day.” James Cox – a former boyfriend of Newman’s daughter Nell – said the actor gave him the Cosmograph Daytona, reference 6239, in 1984 because he didn’t have a watch of his own.
Mr Cox, 52, decided to sell the piece to raise money for environmental charity the Nell Newman Foundation.
The watch has a white dial, three black subdials, a red outer track and Woodward’s engraving on the back: “DRIVE CAREFULLY ME.” Newman was said by his wife to have very little attachment to the watch. She said: “As far as he was concerned, it was a tool. He definitely didn’t have a strong attachment to things.” Newman died in 2008, aged 83.