Royal Mohammed Vi spotted wearing a Rolex

A casual shopping trip became a horological headline when King Mohammed VI of Morocco was photographed with one of the more extraordinary Rolex variants in any royal collection. On his wrist sat a heavily customised Rolex Cellini Prince in white gold, its entire case, bezel, and bracelet subjected to dense hand-engraving by WatchCraft Collection — a specialist atelier known for bespoke metalwork on luxury timepieces. The result is unmistakably regal, even by the standards of a reigning monarch.

The Rolex Cellini Prince is grounded in genuine horological pedigree. Produced in various iterations from the late 1990s through the mid-2010s, the Prince line revived Rolex's inter-war rectangular case format — itself an homage to the original Prince pocket-watch movements of the 1920s. The Cal. 7040 and later Cal. 7042 movements that powered these watches are manually wound, rhodium-plated, and feature a dual-time-zone register on the lower dial — the distinctive 'railway track' seconds subdial that defines the Prince aesthetic. The two-register dial layout visible here, with bold Arabic numerals at 3, 6, and 9, confirms the classic Prince configuration.

What makes this example extraordinary is the WatchCraft engraving. Every surface — lugs, case sides, bracelet links — has been worked with scroll and serpentine motifs in high relief, turning what is already a scarce white gold reference into a singular commission. Rolex does not offer this level of decoration in-house at this scale; it is the province of independent ateliers with roots in traditional silversmithing. The darkened, oxidised finish on the engraving adds depth and contrast consistent with WatchCraft's known aesthetic vocabulary.

Mohammed VI has a well-documented appreciation for fine watchmaking — previous sightings have included Grand Complications from Patek Philippe alongside sporting Rolex references. That he chooses to wear a bespoke artistic piece during an everyday excursion, rather than reserving it for formal occasions, speaks to a genuine collector's relationship with the object rather than mere display.

The standard Rolex Cellini Prince in white gold was listed in the region of £15,000–£22,000 depending on dial and metal specification before the line was quietly retired. Grey-market values for unmodified examples have climbed as the Prince gains retrospective appreciation among dress-watch collectors. A fully engraved commission of this calibre carries no published price — the WatchCraft customisation alone likely represents an investment comparable to the base watch, making this piece effectively a bespoke museum artefact on the wrist of a king.