Lamine Yamal’s Rolex Daytona 126598TBR: What It Is and What It Costs
The watch
Cosmograph Daytona 126598TBR
Estimated price
$180,000
Lamine Yamal was photographed in Barcelona wearing a Rolex Cosmograph Daytona reference 126598TBR — solid yellow gold, diamond bezel, champagne dial. Around $180,000 of watch on an eighteen-year-old’s wrist.
It is the most expensive object we have put on this site, and it is worth understanding what that money is actually buying, because most of it is not the watch.
Originally posted on our Instagram →
What it is
The Daytona is Rolex’s chronograph — a watch with a stopwatch function, built originally for timing motor racing. The three small dials on the face are the chronograph counters, and the bezel would normally carry a tachymeter scale for calculating speed.
On this reference the tachymeter is gone, replaced by 36 trapeze-cut baguette diamonds set directly into the bezel. More stones are set into the lugs and the crown guards, and eight baguette diamonds serve as the hour markers on a champagne dial.
The case is 40mm, the bracelet is the three-piece Oyster link, and both are 18-carat yellow gold rather than gold plating. Inside is Rolex’s Calibre 4131, an in-house chronograph movement with a 72-hour power reserve, rated to within two seconds a day.
Everything technical about it is the same as a steel Daytona. What separates them is the metal and the stones.
Factory diamonds, and the trap
This is the section worth reading if you are ever buying a diamond-set Rolex.
The stones on this watch were set by Rolex, at the factory, as part of the reference. That is what the TBR in the model number signifies, and it is why the watch carries the value it does.
The trap is aftermarket setting. There is a large trade in taking a plain gold Daytona, sending it to a third-party jeweller to have diamonds cut into the bezel and lugs, and then selling it on. The result can look extremely close to a factory piece in a photograph.
It is not the same object. An aftermarket-set Rolex is worth substantially less than an untouched one — often less than the plain watch was before the stones went in, because the case has been machined into and Rolex will not service it. Buyers have paid factory prices for aftermarket watches more than once.
If you are ever spending at this level: the reference number, the original papers, and a dealer who authenticates are the whole game. A photograph tells you almost nothing.
What it actually costs
The $180,000 is a market estimate rather than a shop price, and for a watch like this the distinction is bigger than usual.
Rolex does not publish prices for most gem-set references the way it does for steel models. They are made in small numbers and allocated privately, so there is no shelf to walk up to. What exists is a secondary market, and prices there move with demand, gold, and who has recently been photographed wearing one.
Which is a genuine part of the story here. A teenager at Barcelona wearing this reference is exactly the kind of thing that moves the number.
Where to find one
The position we take on every page of this site. The Daytona is among the most counterfeited watches ever made, and the gold diamond-set versions attract the most convincing fakes. There is no cheap version of this watch — there are only fakes and aftermarket conversions, and we will not link either.
If you want a Rolex, buy from somewhere that authenticates and gives you papers. At this price that is not caution, it is the entire transaction.
Worth saying
We priced a full Lamine Yamal outfit on this page, and the whole thing came to under a hundred dollars in alternatives.
This watch costs more than every outfit we have ever priced on this site, added together. There is no version of that we can make affordable, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Some things are just expensive.
Price checked 7 September 2026 and will move. Market prices for gem-set references change with demand. Fashion Place earns a commission on some links at no extra cost to you.
