Rolex 6062 Stelline

The 6062 is the Oyster-cased member of Rolex's triple-calendar moonphase pair. Rolex introduced it at the 1950 Basel Fair alongside the non-Oyster 8171. The 36mm case shows the day, date, month, and moonphase, with a screw-down caseback and crown. Published sources place production from 1950 to about 1953. Collectors call the reference "Stelline," Italian for "little stars," after its star-marker dial.

The 6062 is catalogued with caliber 655, an automatic movement associated with the model. The 8171 is catalogued with caliber A.295 CPL; the two references share the same complication layout and period. Black-dial diamond-marker 6062s have twice held the auction record for a Rolex, including a second example sold in October 2025.

Core facts

detail	value
reference	6062
nickname	Stelline (Italian: "little stars"), after the star-marker dial
family	Padellone / triple calendar moonphase
production	Basel Fair 1950 - c. 1953 (editorial consensus; a Christie's catalogue essay gives "approximately 10 years", see Production outline)
total production	under 1,000 across all metals (collector estimates vary; see Production outline)
case diameter	36mm
case construction	two-piece Oyster, screw-down caseback and crown
water resistance	waterproof Oyster case
case materials	18K yellow gold (most common); stainless steel and 18K pink gold (both scarcer, roughly comparable in surviving numbers)
movement	Cal. 655 "Super-Balance" (automatic, in-house, 9¾ lignes)
complications	day, month (twin apertures at 12); date (peripheral pointer); moonphase (blue champlevé enamel disc at 6)
crystal	acrylic, domed
dial signature	"Rolex Oyster Perpetual"; "Swiss" (precious metal) or "Swiss Made" (steel, and precious-metal Explorer dials) beneath the moonphase
crown	screw-down; Super-Oyster (most common) or Twin-Lock

What the 6062 is

In the late 1940s Rolex had the main Oyster Perpetual elements in place: a waterproof case, automatic winding, chronometer certification, and a date display. The 6062 and 8171 combined those elements with a full calendar and moonphase. The 6062 is the Oyster version, with a screw-down caseback and crown; the 8171 uses a snap-on dress-watch caseback.

The Oyster case is the main distinction between the two references. Phillips describes the 8171 as a conventional dress watch and the 6062 as a complication in an everyday-style case. Published reference guides describe the 6062 as the first self-winding triple-calendar wristwatch in a waterproof case, and as Rolex's only complicated self-winding Oyster of this period.

"Stelline" and the other dials

Stelline is Italian for "little stars," the diminutive plural of stella. It names the reference's most recognized dial: applied five-pointed star hour markers, more common in the surviving population than any of the 6062's other dial types. Two generations exist. The earlier version, catalogued by dial-maker Stern as Type 755, sets a separate lume plot beside each star; the later Type 453 centers the lume inside the star itself. Type 755 turns up across every documented case-serial batch; Type 453 is confined to the earliest batches, serials 690,xxx and 788,xxx.

Stelline is one of six original dial configurations. The others are dagger markers, an "Explorer" dial with applied Arabic numerals at 3 and 9 (typically stainless steel, though a handful of gold examples exist, including three pink gold examples among the rarest 6062s known), a pyramid or "Egyptian" marker style confined to the last case batches and the scarcest of the silvered dial types, spade markers, and, rarest of all, a solid black lacquer dial. Seven black dials are documented; three of those carry baguette-cut diamond indices in place of markers, the configuration behind the reference's most valuable results.

Except for the black dials, every 6062 dial is silvered and clearly two-tone: a matte grainé center and a smoother, slightly darker outer date track, a distinction that age and patina have generally sharpened rather than erased. A dial that reads as a single flat tone today may indicate a refinish or service replacement; other evidence is needed to establish originality. The signature beneath the moonphase is the other tell, steel dials read "Swiss Made," precious-metal dials read "Swiss" alone except on Explorer-dial examples, which read "Swiss Made" regardless of case metal. A dial signed "T Swiss T" is a service dial: tritium is a lume material Rolex adopted well after the 6062 left production.

The moonphase uses a blue champlevé enamel disc. Christie's identifies Beyeler as the maker of record and Stern Frères as the firm responsible for delivery and mounting. The disc carries a painted face.

The "Dark Star" 6062, yellow gold Stelline dial with star hour markers, oxidized case patina
Moonphase detail, blue champlevé enamel disc with man-in-the-moon face

The Oyster case

Stainless steel 6062, "The New Standard", screw-down crown and Oyster case construction, Explorer dial

At 36mm, the 6062's case is close in size to a contemporary Datejust or Explorer, not the oversized 38mm dress case Rolex built for the 8171. The construction is a genuine two-piece waterproof Oyster: screw-down caseback, screw-down crown, in either the more common Super-Oyster pattern or, on some examples, a Twin-Lock crown. A sealed case can trap dust and haze inside the crystal over time, and servicing it requires opening the screw-down case rather than removing a snap-on back.

Precious-metal cases came from Genex, the Geneva casemaker that began as the case-making arm of bracelet-maker Gay Frères before Rolex brought it in-house; a number 12 struck inside a key, punched on the interior of the caseback, is Genex's mark. Stainless steel cases came from Spillman, the firm that had built Rolex's original Oyster case in the 1920s. One case-numbering detail is specific to the pink gold run: some examples were first stamped with a different reference, 6063, before Rolex struck that number through with engraved lines and re-stamped 6062 beneath it, evidence that the pink gold case was, at least briefly, treated as its own catalog entry before being folded into the 6062 line.

Movement: caliber 655

The 6062 runs caliber 655, an automatic movement built specifically for the model and sometimes called the "Super-Balance 9¾" after its 9¾-ligne dimension. The base movement carries 17 or 18 jewels, 17-jewel examples turn up disproportionately on watches sold into the US market, which taxed higher jewel counts more heavily, rising to 25 or 26 jewels once the calendar module is counted. The cited references describe the movements as chronometer-certified. The automatic winding module was adapted for the calendar and moonphase correctors while retaining the Oyster case's water resistance.

That caliber number is a genuine point of disagreement in the record. Phillips' own 2024 collectors' guide to the 6062 describes the movement as "carried over from the 8171" and calls it "the same self-winding caliber inside" both references. Auction-house lot cataloguing says otherwise: two separate Christie's lot descriptions and a Sotheby's lot description for individual 6062 examples all name caliber 655 specifically, and Hodinkee's dedicated in-depth piece on the reference does the same. Four independent, specific citations naming 655 outweigh one general editorial line describing a shared caliber, and 655 is the reading used throughout this article. The two movements are close relatives from the same in-house programme and the same era, but they are not, on the weight of the evidence, the identical caliber.

The 8171 and the complication pair

The 6062's sibling is the 8171, the non-Oyster dress version of the same complication set, produced concurrently in the same three case metals. Same complication layout, day and month at 12, moonphase at 6, date on a peripheral pointer track, same era, same eventual discontinuation by 1953. The differences are the case and the movement: the 8171 is 38mm with a snap-on caseback and caliber A.295 CPL; the 6062 is 36mm, waterproof, and runs caliber 655.

Rolex used the name "Cosmograph" for the 6062 in early-1950s print advertising; the name later became associated with the Daytona. Rolex replaced the 6062 and 8171 with the Day-Date in 1956, dropping the month display and moonphase. The brand returned to a production moonphase with the Cellini Moonphase in 2017.

Auction record

The "Bao Dai", black dial, baguette-diamond indices, twice the record holder for the most expensive Rolex sold at auction

The 6062's auction history is dominated by the black-diamond-dial "Bao Dai," which has twice held the record for the most expensive Rolex ever sold, and by a small group of named, individually tracked examples that have traded repeatedly over the past two decades.

Venue	Date	Lot / watch	Material	Configuration	Result
Phillips de Pury, Geneva	2002	"Bao Dai"	18K yellow gold, black dial	baguette-diamond indices (5 diamonds, at 12, 2, 4, 8, 10)	CHF 370,000 (a record for the most expensive Rolex sold at auction at the time)
Phillips, Geneva Watch Auction	May 2017	"Bao Dai," resold	18K yellow gold, black dial	same watch as above	CHF 5,066,000 (again the most expensive Rolex sold at auction, until surpassed months later by the "Paul Newman" Daytona)
Christie's, New York	2012	ex-Gordon Bethune, single-owner sale	18K pink gold, Stelline	n/a	USD 590,500
Christie's, Geneva	May 2019	separate pink gold Stelline, re-lumed with period radium	18K pink gold, Stelline	n/a	CHF 800,000 hammer (CHF 975,000 with premium)
Phillips, Geneva Watch Auction	November 2019	ex-Gordon Bethune, resold	18K pink gold, Stelline	n/a	CHF 1,940,000
Phillips, Geneva Watch Auction	November 2023	"The New Standard," fresh to market	stainless steel, Explorer dial	unpolished, non-lume dial	CHF 2,117,000
Monaco Legend Group, Exclusive Timepieces, Monte Carlo	18-19 October 2025	Lot 111, case no. 942,536	18K yellow gold, black dial	baguette-diamond indices (6 diamonds, at 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11)	USD 6,200,000 (a new record for the reference)

The same "Bao Dai" watch has twice held the auction record for a Rolex. Bao Dai, the last Emperor of Vietnam, visited Rolex in Geneva during 1954 peace talks and reportedly asked to see the company's most expensive watch; Rolex produced this black-dial 6062 with baguette-diamond indices. Consigned by a young Aurel Bacs to Phillips de Pury in 2002, it sold for CHF 370,000 against a CHF 200,000 reserve, then reappeared at Phillips Geneva in May 2017 and sold for CHF 5,066,000, reclaiming the title until that year's record-breaking "Paul Newman" Daytona took it a few months later.

In October 2025, a second black-diamond-dial 6062 set a new auction record for the reference. Case number 942,536 carries six diamonds at 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11, while the Bao Dai has five. Monaco Legend Group sold it in Monte Carlo for USD 6.2 million. Forbes ranked that result third among Rolex auction prices at the time of publication. The lot had previously sold at Antiquorum in 2006 as part of The Mondani Collection for USD 391,000. Hodinkee's preview described the watch and its rarity before the sale.

Outside the headline results, condition and dial originality are recurring factors in 6062 auction descriptions. Christie's watch-department head Remi Guillemin, quoted in Hodinkee's survey of more than 100 documented 6062 sales, put it directly: "It's about condition more than any specific configuration." Refinished or service-dial examples have sold for a small fraction of original-dial results in comparable case condition, figures as low as USD 64,000-257,000 against seven-figure results for original dials from the same auction seasons.

Collecting considerations

Condition and dial originality decide 6062 value far more than case metal or dial pattern. A two-tone silvered dial that reads as a single flat shade today has likely been refinished or replaced; the "Swiss" or "Swiss Made" signature beneath the moonphase, and its match to the case metal and dial type, is the fastest originality check. Service dials are commonly marked "T Swiss T," a tritium reference that postdates the 6062's own production.

The documented auction record places black-dial diamond examples at the top of the market, followed by other black dials and the less common pyramid and Explorer configurations. Steel and pink-gold examples also appear in higher-value results than many yellow-gold examples, but the surviving sample is too small for a fixed ranking. Because the case is a sealed, screw-down Oyster rather than a snap-on dress back, service history matters more here than on the 8171: a caseback that has never been opened, with sharp, unpolished case lines and crisp numbering between the lugs, is the strongest originality signal a 6062 can offer.

Related references

The 8171 is the 6062's non-Oyster sibling, same complication set, same era, different case and a different in-house movement (caliber A.295 CPL rather than the 6062's caliber 655). See Reference:8171 and the Padellone family hub for the pair together.

The Rolex Datocompax chronographs (4767, 5036, 6036, 6236) are calendar chronographs from the same broad period, built on a Valjoux 72C ébauche rather than an in-house automatic caliber. They belong to a separate movement family from the 6062.

The Day-Date, introduced in 1956, replaced both the 6062 and the 8171 in Rolex's catalog, keeping the date complication the market wanted while dropping the month display and moonphase the market apparently did not.

In September 2026 Rolex introduced the Perpetual Padellone (refs. 53505/53506), a modern annual-calendar moonphase watch that uses the "Padellone" name and cites the 8171 and 6062 in its product history. It is current production and outside this wiki's pre-2020 vintage scope; see Padellone.

6062 Stelline, front view
Stelline star-marker dial
Moonphase detail
Stainless-steel Explorer-dial case
Bao Dai black diamond dial

Sources

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