Watch Paparazzi

Royal Ammar bin Humaid Al Nuaimi spotted wearing Rolex

Sheikh Ammar bin Humaid Al Nuaimi, Crown Prince of the Emirate of Ajman, was recently spotted wearing one of the most singular vintage Rolex chronographs to surface in public — a Daytona reference 6263 featuring a bespoke dial engraved or printed with the UAE Desert Eagle coat of arms, worn on a black leather strap. Personalised dials commissioned for Gulf royalty represent a small, fiercely competitive sub-category of vintage Rolex collecting, and this sighting confirms the piece remains in active royal use rather than locked in a private vault.

The Rolex Daytona ref. 6263 was produced from approximately 1969 to 1988, making it one of the longer-running references in the manual-wind Daytona lineage. It is powered by the Valjoux 727 column-wheel movement — a technically superior calibre to the later Valjoux 722, much prized by collectors for its smooth chronograph action. The case measures 37mm in stainless steel, fitted with a screw-down pushers configuration that distinguishes the 6263 from its sister reference 6265, which carried a tachymetre bezel. The 6263 wore a pulsometer or tachymetre bezel in acrylic, and in standard form commands extraordinary prices even without personalisation.

From a collector standpoint, the intersection of a 6263 and a state-commissioned dial is extraordinary. Rolex supplied personalised watches to ruling families across the Gulf from the 1960s onward, and examples bearing royal crests — whether Saudi, Qatari, or Emirati — consistently set auction records when they appear. The UAE Desert Eagle motif on a Daytona dial is exceptionally rare; most personalised Gulf commissions appear on dress watches or Datejusts rather than sport chronographs.

Sheikh Ammar, active on social media and widely recognised among watch enthusiasts for his taste in important horology, wearing this piece publicly signals an ease with extraordinary objects that typifies the Gulf royal collector tradition. The watch is not a museum piece to him — it is a living part of his wardrobe.

At auction the ref. 6263 with this provenance fetched approximately £465,000, a figure that reflects both the intrinsic quality of the reference and the significant premium the royal personalisation commands. Standard, unmodified 6263 examples in good condition trade in the grey market between $80,000 and $250,000 depending on dial variant and condition — the gap to this example's auction result illustrates precisely what a verified royal commission adds to the equation.