Rolex 1803 Day-Date Oxblood Stella Dial Review

When is a Rolex not just a Rolex? When it combines the prestigious Day-Date model (also known as the President), aka the highest of high-end dress watches from the Crown, and a Stella dial, a lacquered pop of color straight out of a bolder era. Together, they make a rare combination that merits the “exotic” terminology reserved for the most special of Rolex models, as unique and influential as the Singer-dial Daytonas that Paul Newman made famous. 

The Stella dial originated in the 1970s, a feverish era of experimentation. Almost exclusively reserved for the Day-Date model, the colorful Stella dials came in teal, pink, light blue, and a shade of green that matches Kermit the Frog, but not that Kermit. Finding popularity among collectors from all over the world, Stella dials remained in production into the 2000s. The Reference 1803 Day-Date featured here dates to the four-digit era of Rolex references, pairing an oxblood-color Stella dial with baguette and brilliant-cut diamond hour markers and a German-language day wheel. 

With so many Rolex models sporting unusual nicknames, one might believe that “Stella dial” is another: perhaps a reference to pop artist Frank Stella, whose colorful, minimalist abstract work would have been an ideal complement. In reality, the Rolex models earned their nickname through the Swiss firm Stella S.A, a supplier of lacquer paint. Even Rolex labeled these models as “Lacquered Stella” in their internal catalogs.

Rolex has often focused on functional, conservative designs, so the fact that the Stella dial exists at all feels like a shock to the status quo. A Stella-dial Rolex is an unexpectedly whimsical piece that has only increased in value among collectors, and its influence is still being felt today. Pieces like the latest Jubilee Gold Day-Date with an aventurine dial could have easily fit in with it’s Stella dial brethren back in their heyday of the 1970s.