Rolex Cosmograph Daytona 116518LN

Daytona › 116518LN

Reference 116518LN in 18k yellow gold with the champagne-and-black Pikachu dial, black Cerachrom bezel and Oysterflex strap, shown with box and papers. Bonhams Hong Kong, 30 May 2023, lot 870.

Rolex introduced the 116518LN in 2017 as an 18k yellow-gold Daytona with a black monobloc Cerachrom bezel and Oysterflex strap. It followed the engraved-gold-bezel, leather-strap 116518. Rolex's launch material presented it with the white-gold 116519LN and Everose 116515LN, the first Daytona references in the Oysterflex group.

Rolex's name for the launch dial is "champagne and black", later restated as "golden and black": a sunray champagne face with three snailed black counters, gold hands and gold hour markers edged in black PVD. Collectors commonly call this colour combination “Pikachu.” Rolex's catalogues use “champagne and black” and later “golden and black.” The 116518LN left the catalogue in 2023, when the cal 4131 generation replaced every Daytona at once.

Core facts

detail	value
reference	116518LN
family	Daytona (Cosmograph, automatic)
production	2017 to 2023
case	40mm, 18k yellow gold
crystal	sapphire (flat)
bezel	black monobloc Cerachrom ceramic, tachymetric scale filled by PVD
crown	Triplock, screw-down, gold
water resistance	100m / 330ft
movement	Rolex cal 4130
jewels	44
power reserve	72 hours
oscillator	blue Parachrom hairspring
chronometer	Superlative Chronometer, −2/+2 sec/day after casing
bracelet	Oysterflex, elastomer over a flexible metal blade
clasp	18k yellow gold Oysterlock with Easylink 5mm extension
predecessor	116518 (engraved gold bezel on leather, 2000–2015)
successor	126518LN (cal 4131, 2023)

Where it sits in the line

The Cerachrom chronology is easiest to follow from the dated model pages. Rolex shows a black Cerachrom bezel on the Everose 116515LN by 2011, while the steel 116500LN arrived in 2016. Sotheby's has published a different account that places the first Daytona Cerachrom bezel on the platinum 116506 in 2013; the sources should be read as competing chronology claims, not as a settled factory sequence. Rolex's own 2011 model pages already carry a black monobloc Cerachrom bezel on the Everose 116515LN, then paired with a chocolate dial on a black leather strap. The steel 116500LN did not get one until 2016. The 116518LN's black bezel therefore belongs to the later gold-and-Oysterflex phase, regardless of which earlier Daytona is counted as the first Cerachrom example.

What 2017 added was the strap. Oysterflex had launched on the Yacht-Master in 2015, and Baselworld 2017 brought it to three gold Daytonas simultaneously: yellow gold as the 116518LN with a champagne dial, white gold as the 116519LN with what Rolex called a "steel and black" dial, and Everose as the 116515LN, which had existed since 2011 and was re-cased onto the new strap. The engraved-bezel leather-strap gold references were superseded in the catalogue by the Oysterflex versions. The 116518LN is the yellow gold half of that changeover.

The reference sits between two generations of the same idea. Behind it is the 116518, which ran to around 2015 with an engraved gold tachymetre bezel and an alligator strap. Ahead of it is the 126518LN, launched March 2023 with cal 4131, which kept the Cerachrom-and-Oysterflex formula and moved the movement on.

Production outline

Rolex introduced the reference in March 2017 and Sotheby's cataloguing agrees, describing it as introduced "in March 2017 at the Baselworld fair" together with its white and pink gold counterparts. Rolex's own Baselworld microsite page for the launch model was archived on 3 April 2017.

Dial codes accumulated in waves. The launch configuration and one variant appear in 2017 and 2018; a broader set of seven codes appears through 2018 and 2019, taking in white, champagne, black and three diamond-set layouts; the meteorite dial and a further diamond-set black dial appear in 2021. Sotheby's dates the meteorite introduction to 2021. Its “most sought-after” wording is an auction-house description, not a production fact.

The catalogue transition is clear, although catalogue withdrawal and final case production are separate questions. Rolex's Daytona catalogue still lists the whole 1165xx generation in February 2023 and lists none of it by June 2023; the cal 4131 references replaced them across the board following the announcement on 27 March 2023. Case serials through the run use the random eight-character alphanumeric format with no public year mapping, so guarantee cards and hang tags do the dating work. See Reference:Serial-numbers for the full key.

Movement notes

Cal 4130 runs the 116518LN, unchanged in architecture from the movement that launched in 2000. It works on 44 jewels with a 72-hour reserve, switches through a column wheel, couples the chronograph with a vertical clutch, and carries a paramagnetic blue Parachrom hairspring with a Rolex overcoil. The 30-minute counter sits at 3, the 12-hour counter at 9, and the running seconds at 6.

What changed by 2017 is the certification language rather than the mechanism. Where the earlier gold Daytonas carried Rolex's "officially certified Swiss chronometer (COSC)" wording, the 116518LN is a Superlative Chronometer rated to −2/+2 seconds per day after casing, the catalogue-wide standard Rolex introduced in 2015. The 4130 stayed in the reference until the end; the 47-jewel cal 4131 with the Chronergy escapement arrived only with the 2023 replacement.

For the full caliber lineage and the 4030-to-4130 architecture comparison, see Reference:Movements#cal-4130.

Dial map

Twelve dial codes are documented across the run, every one of them a Rolex catalogue option. Gem-setting on this reference is factory work, and Rolex's own spec grids for four of the codes carry the line "diamonds in 18 ct gold settings".

Rolex model code	Dial	Period	Notes
M116518LN-0039	Black and champagne-colour	2017–2018	Earliest catalogue variant alongside the launch model
M116518LN-0040	Champagne and black	2017	The Baselworld launch configuration; the Pikachu
M116518LN-0041	White	2018–2019	Snailed small counters
M116518LN-0042	Champagne-colour	2018–2019	Snailed small counters, matching counter rings
M116518LN-0043	Black	2018–2019	Snailed small counters
M116518LN-0044	Champagne-colour set with diamonds	2018–2019	Diamonds in 18 ct gold settings
M116518LN-0045	White mother-of-pearl set with diamonds	2018–2019	Diamonds in 18 ct gold settings
M116518LN-0046	Black set with diamonds	2018–2019	Diamonds in 18 ct gold settings
M116518LN-0047	Black and champagne-colour	2018–2019	Snailed small counters
M116518LN-0048	Champagne-colour and black, renamed "golden and black" by 2022	2019–2023	Chromalight display; the Pikachu under its later catalogue name
M116518LN-0076	Meteorite and black	2021–2023	Widmanstätten meteorite face, Chromalight display
M116518LN-0078	Black set with diamonds	2021–2023	Diamonds in 18 ct gold settings, snailed counters

The Pikachu is the champagne dial with black counters, not a black dial with yellow accents, and Rolex's own two names for it settle the point. Bilal Khan, writing at aBlogtoWatch from the 2017 launch, describes the dial as champagne with a sunray finish and black subdials, with hour markers in 18k yellow gold under black PVD and Chromalight inserts, and gold hands. “Pikachu” is collector shorthand for this yellow-gold, black-and-champagne combination; Rolex uses the catalogue names instead.

The meteorite is the other dial that carries the reference. It arrived four years into the run, sits on the same black counters, and pairs a grey Widmanstätten pattern with gold markers.

The champagne sunray face with three snailed black counters, gold hands and black-PVD-edged gold markers.
Reference 116518LN with the champagne-and-black "Pikachu" launch dial (model code M116518LN-0040), Rolex press image, Baselworld 2017.
Black dial with snailed counters, Rolex model code M116518LN-0043.
Meteorite and black, Rolex model code M116518LN-0076, added to the catalogue in 2021.

Case, bezel, crystal, and crown

The case is 40mm in 18k yellow gold on the standard Oyster architecture: monobloc middle case, screw-down caseback, screw-down winding crown with the Triplock triple waterproofness system, and screw-down chronograph pushers. Water resistance is 100m / 330ft. Rolex publishes no case thickness for the reference.

Case profile: the monobloc Cerachrom bezel holding the crystal against the middle case, with screw-down pushers and the Triplock crown.

The bezel is a single piece of black Cerachrom ceramic that holds the sapphire crystal against the middle case. In this usage, “monobloc” distinguishes it from a ceramic insert fitted into a separate metal bezel. The tachymetric scale is filled by depositing a thin layer of metal into the numerals by physical vapour deposition. Rolex's own description of the process has shifted over the reference's life. The 2017 launch page says "18 ct gold or platinum"; the 2022 pages for the same model codes say platinum only. On every Rolex image of the 116518LN the scale reads gold-toned, so the gold reading is the one the yellow gold watch supports.

Rolex also changed how it described the scale itself, from "engraved tachymetric scale" in the 2017 to 2019 spec grids to "moulded tachymetric scale" by 2022. Phillips has continued to catalogue it as engraved. The bezel did not change; the wording did.

Bracelets and clasps

Oysterflex is not a rubber strap in the ordinary sense. A superelastic metal blade runs down the centre of each half, overmoulded with high-performance black elastomer, which gives the strap the retention of a bracelet and the flex of rubber. Underneath, longitudinal cushions hold the strap off the wrist, venting it and letting the wrist expand without the strap losing its grip. Sotheby's describes the internal plate as a titanium and nickel alloy, matching the description aBlogtoWatch gave when the system launched on the Yacht-Master in 2015.

The clasp is an 18k yellow gold folding Oysterlock safety clasp with the Easylink 5mm comfort extension, which gives 5mm of tool-free length adjustment.

The Oysterflex strap, elastomer overmoulded on a flexible metal blade, with the moulded lettering on the underside.

No Glidelock and no Oyster bracelet were offered for the reference. For the wider Daytona bracelet and clasp chronology, see Reference:Bracelets.

Oysterflex and its clasp should be inspected separately from the watch head. A replacement strap or clasp does not by itself date the case or establish original delivery.

Special branches

Gem-set dials

Four of the twelve documented dial codes are diamond-set, and all four carry Rolex's own gem-setting line on the spec grid. The model codes identify the catalogue-set configurations. On the 116518LN, champagne, black and white mother-of-pearl bases with diamond hour markers in 18 ct gold settings are catalogue configurations with model codes attached. Anything outside those four codes, including pavé, coloured-stone accents and gem-set bezels, needs major-house documentation before it can be read as factory work.

Catalogue and sale context

The dial and auction records below document catalogue options and individual sale contexts. They do not establish a general supply or price ranking among the 116518LN dial variants.

Auction record

The auction examples below document individual watches and accessories. They are not a complete sales census.

Sale	Date	Lot	Watch	Result
Phillips, Watches Online: The Hong Kong Sessions	Fall 2023	8028	Champagne dial, circa 2019, case no. 8S'12Y'502, with Taipei guarantee dated 4 January 2019, hang tags and full packaging	HKD 330,200
Sotheby's, Important Watches Part I, Geneva	11 May 2025	120	Meteorite dial, circa 2022, case no. 6E'0V9'562, box and papers, offered by a private collector	est. CHF 50,000–100,000

Boxes, cards, hang tags, and straps are accessories attached to the individual lot. Their presence can help document provenance, but an absent card does not by itself prove that the watch is incomplete or incorrect.

Related references

Daytona 116518: Yellow gold, engraved bezel on leather, 2000–2015.
Daytona 116519LN: White gold Cerachrom on Oysterflex, 2017–2023.
Daytona 116515LN: Everose gold Cerachrom, 2011–2023.
Daytona 116508: Yellow gold on bracelet, caliber 4130, 2016–2023.
Daytona 116500LN: Steel Cerachrom, 2016–2023.
Daytona 116506: Platinum, 50th anniversary, 2013.

Gallery

Reference 116518LN in yellow gold with the champagne-and-black launch dial
Champagne-and-black dial detail
Baselworld 2017 launch configuration
Black dial variant
Meteorite and black dial
Black Cerachrom bezel and case profile
Oysterflex strap and clasp

Sources