Actor Mark Wahlberg spotted wearing a Rolex

Mark Wahlberg was recently spotted wearing one of the most coveted stainless steel sports watches in circulation — the Rolex Cosmograph Daytona reference 116500LN — a piece that, despite sitting in Rolex's standard catalogue, routinely eludes even loyal authorized dealer clients for years at a time.

Launched at Baselworld 2016, the 116500LN marked a pivotal evolution for the Daytona line. Its 40mm Oystersteel case houses the manufacture Calibre 4130, a column-wheel COSC-certified chronograph movement with a vertical clutch and a generous 72-hour power reserve. The ceramic Cerachrom bezel — offered in black or white — replaced the long-serving aluminum ring and brought improved scratch resistance alongside a tachymetric scale rendered in platinum-deposited numerals. Water resistance sits at 100 metres, housed beneath a scratch-resistant sapphire crystal with Cyclops-free, flat exhibition geometry true to the Daytona DNA.

From a collector's standpoint, the 116500LN represents a clean break from the reference 116520 it superseded. The Calibre 4130 is entirely in-house, eliminating the Zenith El Primero-derived architecture that had defined the modern Daytona since 1988. That shift drew initial skepticism from purists attached to the El Primero connection, but the 4130's reliability, serviceability, and refinement have since earned it near-universal respect. Both the black and white dial variants are considered essential acquisitions in contemporary sports watch collecting.

Wahlberg is a known watch enthusiast whose sightings have covered the spectrum from Royal Oaks to Pateks. His choice of the Daytona 116500LN — specifically in its black Cerachrom bezel configuration — reads less as celebrity accessorizing and more as a straightforward collector's decision. The reference is the kind of watch serious wearers keep returning to regardless of what else occupies the watch box.

On the market, the 116500LN tells a familiar Rolex grey-market story. Official retail sits well below five figures, but authorised dealer allocations remain scarce, pushing secondary market premiums to roughly double or more the list price depending on dial variant, condition, and accompanying papers. The black dial version Wahlberg wears commands slightly stronger premiums than its white-dial counterpart among current buyers.