Paul Newman’s Rolex he won in famed 24-hour race expected to fetch millions at auction

A pair of rare Rolex watches owned by Paul Newman are expected to fetch millions at auction after the late-actor’s daughter Nell discovered them in a desk drawer in their family home.

One of the watches – a white-faced chronograph with a metal band – was awarded to Newman after he won the 24 Hours of Daytona race in 1995, and the other – black-faced and with a leather band – was given to him by his wife and is inscribed with the advice ‘Drive Very Slowly Joanne.’

Both watches will be auctioned in June as part of a sale of over 300 items that belonged to Newman and his wife, Joanne Woodward. 

Though Sotheby’s estimated the watches would sell for between $500,000 and $1million each, watch specialists predicted they could draw more than a million apiece, according to the Wallstreet Journal.

The racecar driving actor’s watches have drawn high price tags at auction before, with another Rolex with a unique dial fetching almost $18million in 2017.

Paul Newman wearing what appears to be his 1993 Rolex Daytona Zenith 16520 in Mexico City in 2007. The watch which is going up for auction in June and is expected to fetch millions

The two Rolexes that belonged to Paul Newman and are being auctioned in June

The white-faced Daytona is a 1993 Rolex Daytona Zenith 16520, with ‘Rolex at Daytona 24 Paul Newman Rolex Motorsports Man of the Year 1995’ inscribed on the back.

Newman was 70 years old when he won that watch, the oldest person in history to win the 24-hour race in Daytona, Florida.

It appeared to be on Newman’s wrist in photos from subsequent races, including while he was behind the wheel in a 2007 race in Mexico City.

The watch was previously auctioned in 1999 after Newman donated it to a charity auction. Back then it fetched a mere $39,000, which Newman donated to his camp for children with special needs called The Hole in the Wall Gang.

Sometime after the sale the watch made it back to Newman, which was unknown to Nell until she discovered it at the family home, according to the Wallstreet Journal.

‘That was news to me,’ Nell said, ‘And I thought, what a delightful story.’ 

She said she discovered the watches while looking for a pencil in Newman’s desk office at their family home several years ago after his death. 

‘There they were with his driver’s license,’ she said. ‘They were just in a box on his desk.’

Newman was awarded the watch in 1995 after winning the 24 Hours of Daytona race (above)

The back of Paul Newman’s watch which he won in 1995 during the Daytona 24

The back of Paul Newman’s watch with a message from his wife Joanne Woodward

The black-faced watch, a 2006 Daytona 116519, has a white-gold case and a leather strap. He wore it on the racetrack Lime Rock Park in 2008 during his final race before his death later that year, according to the Wallstreet Journal.

Its message from his wife advising him to drive safely is similar to advice inscribed on the backs of two other watches she gave him, which read ‘Drive slowly, Joanne’ and ‘Drive Carefully, Me.’ The first sold for $5.5 million at auction, while the second fetched $17.8 million.

New York City watch dealer Andrew Shear told the Wallstreet Journal that the Rolexes Newman prominently wore during his life and career helped spark today’s vintage watch market.

‘We can tie vintage-watch collecting, vintage-Rolex collecting to him,’ he said.

Shear added that the simple fact that Newman wore any given watch while keeping time on the racetrack or checking if he was late for dinner added hundreds of thousands of dollars in value to a watch.

His daughter said though he loved Rolexes, he did not treat them as valuable jewelry, but instead as hard-working time-keeping tools.

He did not put his watches on a pedestal,’ Nell said, adding his Rolexes were ‘all about keeping time, being on time and timing race cars.’