I hate to admit: An auction catalog entry completely confused me for much of this week.
Let me start back in 2019: the famous replica Rolex Pre-Daytona ref. 6238 with a red chronograph hand worn by actor George Lazenby in the Bond film On Her Majesty’s Service was up for auction again. The watch has well-documented provenance, having appeared at auction as early as 2003 at Christie’s. It was offered with its original invoice from Bucherer, made out to a production manager of EON Productions, the producers of OHMS. Since 2003, the watch has changed hands a number of times. Most recently, it was offered by Artcurial in 2016, and then Antiquorum in 2019, both times going unsold under the hammer.

This Lazenby Pre-Daytona has long been believed to be a one-of-a-kind ref. 6238 — the only one with a “real” red chronograph hand. Due to this uniqueness and its status as a Bond watch, it usually has juicy estimates. In 2019, Antiquorum had an estimate of €300-500k on the Lazenby Pre-Daytona.
Hence my surprise when I saw Lot 87 at Antiquorum’s upcoming January sale: what’s being described as a “Pre-Daytona George Lazenby James Bond” perfect fake Rolex reference 6238. Knowing the Lazenby ref. 6238 went unsold a couple years back, I’d been eagerly awaiting it to come up again, kind of like I’d been waiting for Twitter to ban a certain insurrectionist-in-chief. Finally, I thought, this was it!

Upon closer inspection though, I quickly realized this was anything but the Lazenby Pre-Daytona. The serial number is different, the dial is noticeably beat up, and the sub-dial register hands looks different. The estimate reflects these differences: instead of six figures, this lot has an estimate more commiserate with that of a “normal” ref. 6238, €25k-45k. Here’s the thing though: no matter what you actually think about this 6238, it’s not really normal.