Wind Vintage has had plenty of remarkable and important timepieces flow through its digital doors over the years.
Eric Wind — the dealer and watch authority behind the Palm Beach-based outfit and a longtime friend of Gear Patrol — has an almost unmatched eye for sourcing historically significant pieces.
But even by those standards, the latest addition to the Wind Vintage inventory is a genuine shock to the system. This is a watch that will stop music fans and horological gawkers dead in their tracks.
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Hotline bling
The watch in question is a Rolex GMT-Master II reference 116758SANR — a yellow gold, bedazzled, off-catalog version of the famed travel watch introduced circa 2006.
As you’d imagine, it was produced in extremely limited numbers due to the intensive, zero-defect gem-setting process used for each one. In fact, according to Wind Vintage, the piece is rarer still than the much-talked-about “Rainbow” Daytona reference 116595RBOW.
And as with that other famous gem-set version of a modern Rolex sports watch, the details of this GMT’s bezel are the definition of bling.
It’s inlaid with 36 baguette diamonds and 12 black sapphires — one of which is cut in the shape of a triangle — with the sapphires doubling as hour markers to help read a third time zone.
The lugs and crown guards are also adorned with diamonds, making this among the most extravagant production references Rolex has ever created.
