Rolex Yacht-Master 42 titanio RLX 226627

Imagen: Rolex, web oficial

The storyWhy this reference matters

The Yacht-Master is one of the very few new collections Rolex has opened since the Daytona in 1963: it turned up at Basel in 1992. And it came out of a reject. In the late eighties the firm had been kicking around a redesign of the Submariner, with a bidirectional bezel and polished raised numerals, and decided in the end to leave the Submariner alone. Rather than bin the project it turned it into something else: a luxury nautical watch that has never pretended to be a diving instrument.

For thirty years that meant precious metals. Yellow gold, Rolesium in steel and platinum, Everose, white gold. The Yacht-Master was the Submariner for people who do not get off the boat, and its 100 metres of water resistance said so without embarrassment. So when a titanium one appeared in 2023, in the 42 mm size, half the enthusiast world was thrown: the brand of weight, gold and solid cases had suddenly produced its light watch.

The material is called RLX titanium, a grade 5 alloy. Rolex had only used it before on the 50 mm Deepsea Challenge of 2022, an object nobody buys in order to wear it. What stands out here is the finish: a technical brushing with visible grain running along the case flanks, the edges of the links and the cover of the clasp. Nothing like the shine the house usually goes in for.

SpecificationsThe numbers, in one table

IdentificationHow to tell it apart

Forty-two millimetres, 11.6 thick, 50.3 lug to lug and 21 mm between the lugs, an odd measurement it shares with almost no other Rolex. It comes in around a hundred grams on the bracelet, roughly a third less than the steel equivalent. You identify this watch with your hand before your eye.

The bezel is matt black Cerachrom, bidirectional, with raised polished numerals rather than the engraved and filled ones of a Submariner. The dial is brushed black and carries a Cyclops over the date. Titanium reads greyer and flatter than steel: put the two side by side and the difference is obvious.

Oysterlock clasp with an Easylink extension of about five millimetres. Watch out for the neighbouring reference: the 226659 is the same watch in white gold and weighs exactly what you expect a Rolex to weigh. The 226627 is the titanium one, and there is only one foolproof way to check, which is to pick it up.

CollectingWhat collectors check

Availability comes first: it is made in small numbers and is rarely on display at an authorised dealer. That pushes the secondary-market price far harder than any technical argument, so go in knowing you are paying for scarcity and not only for the material.

The second point is serious: the grained brushing cannot be redone the way steel can. A generic workshop polish takes the texture off and leaves the titanium shiny and soft-looking, with no way back. Before buying, hold the case flanks and the edges of the links up to the light: the grain should run continuously and all in the same direction.

After that, the usual. Ceramic with no chips on the bezel edge, an Easylink that runs freely, papers and card. And try it on properly: some people find a Rolex that weighs nothing simply odd, and that is not something you get over by getting used to it.

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