The Rolex Ref. 6062 With Black Dial and Diamond Indexes — The Crown Jewel of the Auction Season
If you asked me to name my top three dream watches — with no budget constraints — this one would make the list without hesitation: the Rolex triple calendar Ref. 6062 with a black dial and diamond indexes.
And as luck would have it, one of these mythical pieces is coming up for auction this weekend at Monaco Legend Group, with an estimate north of €3 million. For context, the last time a similar watch appeared at auction was in 2017, when Emperor Bao Dai’s Ref. 6062 fetched CHF 5.06 million (around €5.45 million today).
So why is this particular Rolex such a big deal? Allow me to make the case — because this might just be the most important Rolex to hit the market this auction season.
A Rare Complication in Rolex History
Rolex is a brand built on precision and durability, not on complications. Which makes the Ref. 6062 an outlier — and a masterpiece. It’s one of only two Rolex references to feature a triple calendar with moonphase, displaying the day, date, month, and moon phase all at once.
Within the 6062 family, collectors obsess over subtle dial variations: the pyramid dial, the star dial, and the spade dial, among others. Most of these dials were produced in white, which makes a black dial example incredibly rare — and in my opinion, far more visually striking, especially against a gold case.
(Details of the dial including the six diamond hour marker configuration).
The Rarity of the Black Diamond Dial
Black-dial 6062 appear at auction only once in a blue moon. In over 13 years of following auctions, I can recall perhaps four or five black-dial pieces surfacing — most of them star-dial variants. But the undisputed king of them all is the black dial with diamond indexes.
If we borrow a comparison from the world of vintage Ferraris:
- A white star dial 6062 is the 250 SWB — elegant, collectible.
- A black star dial is the 250 LM — rarer, racier.
- But the black diamond dial? That’s the 250 GTO — the holy grail.
It’s the top of the collecting pyramid.
Fore more on black dial 6062 variations please see a previous article here.
A Tale of Two Dials: Five vs. Six Diamonds
Among black diamond-dial 6062s, there are two known types: one with five diamond markers, and one with six. The Bao Dai example has five (see picture below), with the Rolex crown shifted lower to make space for the diamond at 12 o’clock — a subtle but necessary design move by dial maker Stern Frères.
The watch offered by Monaco Legend however features the six-diamond configuration, which I personally find slightly more balanced and elegant. But what truly caught my eye is the bi-language calendar — something I’ve never seen before.
At first glance, the calendar seems German (“Mon” for Montag -> Monday, “Mai” for May), but “Mai” is also French. So we have a bilingual calendar — English for the day, French for the month — possibly a special-order detail requested by the original owner.
(Below the bi-language calendar of the Ref 6062 in English & French (months).
Subtle Details, Deep Provenance
Look closely, and you’ll see that the day and month discs aren’t white — they’re a warm doré (see above), or golden tone, reportedly unique to black-dial 6062s. The black moonphase, correct calendar font, and pristine dial layout all confirm its originality. Plus the watch retains the Rolex signed so called brick bracelet first seen at Sothebys in 1991.
Provenance-wise, this example is rock solid (at least until the early 1990s). Its history traces back over three decades, unchanged since the early 1990s — same dial, same hands, same Rolex-signed brick bracelet.
Here’s the ownership timeline:
- 1991: Sold at Sotheby’s for around £28,000 to a London dealer.
- Late 1990s: Purchased by Guido Mondani (of the Mondani publishing family).
- 2006: Sold at Antiquorum for CHF 469,000, bought by Davide Parmegiani, who then sold it to Italian collector LT.
- 2025: Back with Parmegiani and now offered by Monaco Legend Group.
Estimate today? Above €3 million.
(Below when it was sold at Antiquorum for the Mondani sale for CHF 469’000 in 2006).
The Market and the Moment
There are only three known black-dial diamond Ref. 6062s in existence:
- The Bao Dai example.
- The one owned by Frattini, not for sale anytime soon.
- And this watch.
That’s it.
In the hierarchy of collectible Rolexes, this piece sits at the absolute top of the pyramid — above the Ref. 6270 Daytona, above any Paul Newman or Killy, even above the split-seconds chronograph made by Rolex.
This watch should easily clear €3 million. But I’ll go further: I believe we’re approaching a time when truly important Rolex watches will routinely fetch $10 million. Not as an anomaly, like THE Paul Newman Daytona, but as a new benchmark.
And if one Rolex deserves to cross that threshold first, it’s this one — the black dial, diamond index Ref. 6062.
(On the wrist of Andrea Parmegiani, the Rolex 6062 black dial diamonds).
(On the cover of an important Rolex Italian Rolex book).
(As it appeared in an auction catalog 34 years ago in 1991 at Sothebys)
