Paul Newman's legendary Rolex Daytona Chronograph

In the late summer of 1978, 13-year-old James Cox and his father Ed drove 90 miles from their home in Larchmont, New York, to the Lime Rock Park racetrack in the countryside of Connecticut.

With his camera, a recent gift from his father, James made his way through the crowd, carefully avoiding the officials and snapping photos of the cars circling the track and the drivers prowling the pits. He spotted a pilot in a blue racing suit, sweaty but relaxed in an area bounded by ropes. Earlier, James had heard the track announcer welcome actor and race car driver Paul Newman's team. James realized the man in the blue jumpsuit was Newman and moved closer, hoping for a good shot. Newman looked directly at James, gave him a wink and motioned for him to slip under the rope to take his picture. That's what James did. Back in Larchmont, Newman's picture adorned the fridge - but it was eventually lost.

Five years later, James arrived at Atlantic College in Bar Harbor, Maine. After unpacking his things, he headed outside, where a speedy, tan Nissan Stanza pulled up in the gravel driveway of his dorm. The driver applied the handbrake and spun the car to a stop.

A young girl with spiky blond hair, wearing tight jeans and a plaid shirt and a six-pack of St Pauli Girl beers got out of the car. "She gave me a childish look and I liked her right away," James, 52, said on a recent call from his home in Santa Cruz, Calif. The blonde, who lived on the same floor in the dorm, called herself Nell Potts. "I remember doing my best to try to charm her over the next two days," he says.

Nell and James soon became a couple. During a dinner with other students, Nell brought a bottle of Newman's Own salad dressing, one of the products that Paul Newman sold through his company Newman's Own , donating all profits to charity. Seeing the bottle, James said, "I met Paul Newman when I was a kid on a racetrack. He was a really nice guy." As James told his Lime Rock story, everyone else laughed. Then James learned the truth about his new girlfriend: Nell Potts, as the others already knew, was actually Nell Newman , the eldest daughter of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.

"James was the last person to find out about [my parents], and that's why he survived," says nell , 58, who is now based in Santa Cruz. "But it was good, he had no idea, and that's why we got so close."

During the holidays, James stayed with the Newman in Westport, Connecticut. In the summer of 1984, he offers to fix up the family cabin, where Nell and her siblings played, her mother meditates, and her parents read movie scripts.

"One of the days at the cabin, Paul asked me what time it was, to set his watch. I replied: "I don't know, I don't have a watch". He was visibly surprised. So he said to me: "Here, here is a watch. If you wind it up, it indicates a good time". " Newman gave James his Rolex Cosmograph Daytona . “At that time, I knew that rolex was an amazing brand, but I had no idea how important the watch was," says James.

Newman had received the watch as a gift from his wife, who probably bought it at Tiffany's for around $300 in the late 1960s, early in her husband's racing career. The rolex Daytona , as it is commonly called, is a chronograph - a watch with a stopwatch function, a useful feature for a racing driver. "Dad's biggest interest was whether or not he could time laps when the cars were running," recalls Nell Newman .

rolex introduced this particular model - reference 6239 - in 1963 and discontinued production of it in the early 1970s. Around 14,000 were produced. On the watch of Paul Newman , as on 2,000 to 3,000 others, the most distinctive feature is a black, white and red "Exotic" dial. (The models Rolex Daytona were the only watches rolex to be manufactured with "Exotic" dials). The mention the reference " Drive Carefully Me " is engraved by Woodward on the back, and the original stainless steel bracelet has been replaced by an extra-large black leather strap.

When the exotic dial versions came out, dedicated fans of rolex have largely rejected them, but Paul Newman was often photographed throughout the 70s and early 80s wearing his watch. Woodward bought from Paul Newman another chronograph rolex , that is why Nell Newman and James think he happily gave his first. " Paul wasn't the type to hoard or collect anything," James says.

After graduating from college in 1987, James and Nell Newman settle in California. She becomes executive director of the Ventana Wilderness Sanctuary and, with the help of a loan from Newman , he ended up founding TerraPax, a company that made bags and backpacks. The couple, who never married, separated in 1993. The same year, Nell Newman and his partner, Peter Meehan, founded Newman's Own Organic, the stable of his father's business.

Over the years, James has worn the watch that Paul Newman offered to him almost every day without thinking, until he attended a trade show for TerraPax in the mid-90s. A man who didn't speak much English tapped me on the shoulder and said : " Paul Newman watches, Paul Newman watch". I said to myself: "What the hell is this? How does this guy know that I have the watch ofe Paul Newman ? He was obviously a watch enthusiast and he saw that I had the model Daytona . That kinda tipped me off, so I did a little research."

James discovered that collectors, influenced by images of Paul Newman wearing his watch, had renamed the exotic dial models Paul Newman Daytona . In the early 90s, a Paul watch Newman Daytona 6239 was sold at auction for around $10,000. In May 2016, the auction price for future reference reached $2 million.

Unaware of the new price spike, but eager to do something for the Nell Newman Foundation , the charity that Nell Newman founded in 2010, two years after his father died of lung cancer at age 83 - James (the foundation's treasurer) asked Jeff Walsworth, an attorney based in Irvine, California, to advise him to eventually sell the watch. Walsworth contacted Tom Peck, a well-known Californian watch collector, and six weeks later James met the man responsible for this record sale in DaytonaPaul Newman : Swiss auctioneer Aurel Bacs.

Bacs, a more than 30-year veteran of the vintage watch world, runs the Bacs & Russo consultancy firm with his wife Livia, in Geneva, and works closely with auction house Phillips. The first question we ask ourselves when we are interested in antique watches is: "Where is the Paul Newman of Paul Newman ? "said Bacs. "Everyone knows that in the mid-80s, Paul Newman no longer wears it, and no one knows where it is. There is hardly a dinner with collectors where the conversation does not revolve around this watch. Where is she, and how much will she make if she's ever put on the market Has he lost her Is she in a drawer in the house in Connecticut " Over dinner with James , Walsworth and Peck at a private club in Irvine, California in July 2016, Bacs finally held the la Daytona original from Paul Newman in his hands. “He was as excited as a Swiss in a suit can get,” James says.

A few months later, James decided to sell the watch. "Whether Paul was alive, and I was like, 'Hey, you know, that watch you gave me years ago It turns out it's super iconic and valuable,' James says. I think his response would be, "Well, what are you going to do with it, kid? ”

The original of DaytonaPaul Newman will go on sale October 26, 2017 at the first-ever Phillips watch auction in New York. Phillips expects bidding to exceed $1 million, and the Foundation Nell Newman will receive a significant portion of the proceeds.