In 1988, Paul Newman's wife Joanne Woodward gave him a Rolex Daytona. She had the caseback engraved: "Drive Carefully Me." He wore it every day for decades. In 2017 it sold at Phillips auction for $17.7 million — the most expensive wristwatch ever sold at the time.

But the story of the Paul Newman Daytona starts long before that auction room.

When Rolex launched the Daytona in 1963 it was a slow seller — a tool watch for motorsport professionals that nobody wanted. The exotic dial variants we now call Paul Newman dials were considered garish at the time. Dealers practically gave them away. Today those same references — the 6239, the 6263 — are the most coveted grails in all of vintage collecting.

In this episode we go deep on everything. The technical breakdown of what makes a Paul Newman dial — the exotic markers, the Art Deco  ...