The Secret Rolexes Only Guys Like Roger Federer and Drake Can Buy

This is an edition of the newsletter Box + Papers, Cam Wolf’s weekly deep dive into the world of watches. Sign up here.

What do I have in common with Roger Federer, Drake, CC Sabathia, Lionel Messi, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander? We all love ordering off-menu. For me, that means an Animal Style burger at In-N-Out; for those other guys, it means something slightly more extravagant.. Think: exclusive Rolex watches that sometimes cost over a million dollars and come set with an absurd amount of diamonds, sapphires, rubies, and beyond. These pieces are never released (or even announced) to the public and often garner nicknames like “Giraffe,” “Leopard,” and “Eye of the Tiger.” (So they are sort of Animal Style in their own way.) Welcome to the secret world of Rolex’s off-catalog models.

Right now, we’re in the midst of the special time of year when VVIPs start popping up in Rolex’s most prestigious and elusive watches. Like seeing the leaves turn red, I first sensed the change in the air earlier this month, when Drake was spotted on Bobbi Althoff’s podcast (again…) wearing the new Rolex Daytona “Giraffe,” the dial of which recreates the pattern on the long-necked mammal’s fur in gems and gold. Later that week, former New York Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia was spotted wearing the same piece at the US Open.

The Giraffe!

You’ll notice that the “Giraffe” was never included in Rolex’s official lineup of 2025 releases—which might seem odd, because it would’ve easily been the brand’s biggest and coolest debut of the year. That’s very much by design: The Crown only invites its top clients to purchase these off-catalog pieces, a reward for being a loyal customer. “Rolex operates like this to give the buyers who are selected for these pieces exclusivity,” says Eric Rivera, a dealer who recently sold a “Giraffe.” “So they [retain] that off-catalog mystique.”

While there is inherent prestige in owning any Rolex, the brand is estimated to produce somewhere in the neighborhood of one million watches per year. These off-catalog pieces are a way to provide clients with something truly unique. “It's a quiet acknowledgement by Rolex of how important prestige and exclusivity is,” says Paul Altieri, founder of Bob’s Watches, who has moved several of the ultra-coveted “Le Mans” Daytonas in white and yellow gold.

Rolex’s secret releases are defined by extravagant gem settings and wild patterns—the type of stuff you don’t normally see while browsing the Crown’s website. In that way, it makes strategic sense for the brand to keep these watches—which are deeply incongruous with the tough, toolsy pieces the brand’s foundation is built on—out of the public eye. “They don’t really want to have them on their web catalog both because of [the price] and to avoid the public asking for them,” Rivera theorizes.

Retail prices on these pieces aren’t public, but they sell for gaudy numbers on the secondary market. According to Rivera, the market price for a “Giraffe” is over $300,000. Sellers are often attracted by the potential for a massive payday on a single off-catalog watch. “Someone jumped through some crazy hoops to obtain it at retail,” Rivera explains, “and wants to cash their golden ticket.”

A ref. 116595RBOW Rainbow Daytona

As with the main catalog, Daytonas remain the biggest draw for off-catalog buyers. The Rainbow Daytona is “the most difficult to obtain and the benchmark when it comes to off-catalog,” Rivera says. The dealer adds that a variant of the Daytona with its dial fully set with diamonds (ref. 126576TBR) and the “Eye of the Tiger” are the next most desirable pieces. For Altieri, “the ‘Le Mans’ is still the big breadwinner,” he says.

Thanks to social media, Rolex’s off-catalog watches are a far bigger deal in 2025. Back in the day, these silent releases would mostly stay that way; now, however, it’s easy to connect the dots when both Messi and Gilgeous-Alexander wear the “Barbie” Daytona with a pink dial and a ring of pink sapphires on the bezel. Or when Sabathia, Drake, Messi, and music industry exec Steve Stoute all start wearing the same Giraffe-patterned watch.

The off-catalog releases for 2025 include:

• The Giraffe (ref. 126555TBR), a rose-gold Daytona that features diamonds practically everywhere they’ll fit. What’s really interesting about this piece is that it comes on a brown Oysterflex strap (Rolex’s name for its rubber bracelet), the first to come in a color other than black.
• The Blue Sapphire (ref. 126599TSA), which we saw on Roger Federer at the Laver Cup last week. The watch combines diamonds, sapphires, and an obsidian dial. This is reportedly the priciest of the bunch, with an estimated market value of $1.5 million.
• The rose-gold “Le Mans” (ref. 126525LN), the third in a trilogy of off-market “Le Mans” watches. Since it was first unveiled in 2023, this watch instantly became one of, if not the, most notable watch that Rolex makes. The watch pays tribute to the “Paul Newman” Daytona with its white moon-like subdials. The “Le Mans” also distinguishes itself with a red “100” on the bezel’s tachymeter scale, which helps drivers calculate their speed, and a chronograph function that counts all the way up to 24 hours—an ode to the race this version of the Daytona is named after. Rolex started with a white-gold “Le Mans” three years ago, released a yellow-gold version in 2024, then quietly put out this rose-gold version in 2025.

In a world where customers are flush with choice for distinctive, mind-blowing pieces, the off-catalog watches are Rolex’s secret weapon. They allow the brand to play in an even more exclusive sandbox while offering the type of rarity we’d expect from a small-batch independent watchmaker. Waiting lists for many of the Crown’s normal pieces are already legendary; to own one of these off-catalog pieces requires a determination—and bank account—that only a small handful of people on the planet can muster.