Reference:116518: Difference between revisions

The 116518 has produced no headline lot in the way the 16518 produced Phillips's "Le Roi Soleil" Van Cleef & Arpels signed watch in 2018, but Antiquorum has taken at least four 116518s to the block across recent seasons, all clustering in the mid five figures. A mother-of-pearl dial (case P594357, circa 2001) sold for EUR 16,250 against a EUR 14,000–18,000 estimate at Antiquorum Monaco in July 2019. A black dial with diamond indexes (case 963L4944, sold new per its 2013-dated Rolex guarantee card) brought HK$225,000 against an HK$180,000–280,000 estimate at Antiquorum Hong Kong in June 2023. A white "Panda" dial (case M227027, year 2011) made EUR 24,700 against a EUR 15,000–25,000 estimate, above the high end, at Antiquorum Monaco in July 2023. Most recently, a black dial (case Y942608, year 2003, with a 2022 Rolex service warranty) sold for CHF 23,750 against a CHF 18,000–24,000 estimate at Antiquorum Geneva in May 2024. Every one of the four ships on the factory leather-and-18k-yellow-gold-deployant configuration the reference is defined by, and none approaches the provenance record the Zenith-era 16518 built.

The 116518LN arrived in 2017 and accelerated hard through the late 2010s, catching the same allocation-economy dynamics as the steel 116500LN. Whether that pulled the discontinued 116518 along with it is not something the four lots above can settle on their own — they span 2019 to 2024 and stay in a narrow band regardless of what the 116518LN was doing in the same years. The 116518 trades on material and configuration rather than headline provenance, and the rarer dials (MOP, factory diamond markers, factory pavé with confirmed provenance) are the ones likely to carry a premium, though the auction record surveyed here does not include one.