The 10 Best Gold Chronographs in 2026

Let's face it: a gold chronograph is not exactly the most subtle style of wristwatch you can sport. Combine the high complication, the complex multi-level dial, and the gleaming precious-metal execution of the case (and, in some instances, also the bracelet), and the result tends to be a prominent, weighty, and expensive timepiece that inevitably attracts attention. Unlike standard, three-handed gold dress watches, gold chronographs are not built to be shy, discreetly hiding their assets beneath a shirt cuff. All the more reason, then, to make sure that if you're bold enough to rock one of these watches, that the face it's presenting to the world is one that inspires awe and admiration. Here are 10 of our favorites from an elite lineup of respected watchmakers. 

[toc-section heading="Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Frosted Gold Selfwinding Chronograph"]

Price: $95,400, Case Size: 41mm, Case Height: 11mm, Lug Width: 23mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 50 meters, Movement: Automatic Audemars Piguet Caliber 4401

Audemars Piguet’s frosted white gold, used here for the 41mm case of a vibrant, blue-dialed chronograph within Audemars Piguet’s flagship Royal Oak collection, is achieved through a process of hammering the gold with a diamond-tipped tool to create tiny indentations — a process that dates back to ancient Florence. The dial’s surface is enhanced with the signature Royal Oak Grand Tapisserie texture and highlighted by contrasting golden-toned subdials at 3, 6, and 9 o’clock. The famous octagonal bezel with visible screws has a frosted surface and polished facets, and the case flows seamlessly into the integrated gold bracelet that continues the hammered texture of the case. Behind a sapphire caseback, the self-winding Caliber 4401 — introduced in 2019 as the Swiss maison’s first in-house-made integrated chronograph movement — drives the watch’s functions, including a flyback function. Its 70-hour power reserve comes courtesy of a gold rotor finished with côtes de Genève.

[toc-section heading="Breguet Type XX Chronographe 2075"]

Price: $48,200, Case Size: 38.3mm, Thickness: 13.2mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 50m, Movement: Manual-winding Caliber 7279

The Breguet Type XX Chronographe 2075, unveiled for Breguet’s 250th anniversary in 2025, stylishly pays tribute to this model’s aviation history in two distinctive iterations. The non-limited version (Ref. 2075BH/99/398) has a black dial with vintage-style Arabic numerals, syringe hands, and a classical bicompax “Big Eye” subdial arrangement. The case is in the maison’s proprietary Breguet gold and the dial, in a distinct anodized aluminum alloy, pays subtle tribute to pilot Louis Breguet and his pioneering use of that sheet metal in his aircraft. The limited-edition Ref. 2075BH/G9/398 (250 pieces) is based on an extremely rare vintage model, with a satin-brushed silver dial; more elegant Arabic numerals; smaller, sectored subdials; a blued chronograph hand; and a tachymetric scale on the dial’s periphery. The Breguet gold case contains the new Caliber 7278, with a 5-hz frequency, a 60-hour power reserve, and a flyback function (the other model uses essentially the same movement, Caliber 7279, the only difference being the Big-Eye subdial display.) The movement’s surface area features a breathtaking miniature engraving depicting the historical Breguet 19 plane in flight over the Atlantic Ocean, between American and Europe, paying homage to a historic 1930 flight.

[toc-section heading="Breitling Navitimer B01 Chronograph 41"]

Price: $22,300, Case Size: 41mm, Thickness: 13.6mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 30m, Movement: Automatic Caliber B01

The Breitling Navitimer, introduced in 1952, is the quintessential pilot's chronograph watch as well as one of the most instantly recognizable Swiss watches in the world. Its signature innovation, which it adopted from its predecessor, the Chronomat, is an inner rotating slide-rule bezel that can be used in conjunction with the stopwatch functions to calculate vital stats for aviation, like fuel consumption, distance traveled, and descent rates. The Navitimer, which derived its name from a portmanteau of “Navigation” and “Timer,” added a beaded edge to this utilitarian scale that a pilot’s gloved hands could easily operate. The original Ref. 806 established the model’s now-familiar three-register arrangement — elapsed hours, elapsed minutes, and running seconds displayed on subdials at 3, 6, and 9 o’clock, respectively — and these elements live on in this 18k rose-gold-cased model, with a chocolate brown dial. Beating inside the 41mm case is Breitling’s in-house Caliber B01. a COSC chronometer-certified movement with a column-wheel chronograph function and a 70-hour power reserve.

[toc-section heading="Cartier Privé Collection Tortue Monopoussoir"]

Price: $51,000 (at release), Case Size: 43.7mm x 34.8mm, Case Height: 10.2mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: N/A, Movement: Manually winding Caliber 1928 MC

Like its predecessors in the exclusive, vintage-revival Cartier Privé collection, the Tortue Monopoussoir, a limited edition of 200 pieces introduced in 2024, takes its cues from one of the watchmaker-jeweler’s classical, historic shaped timepieces — in this case, the Tortue (French for “turtle”), first created in 1912 as one of Cartier’s earliest models, after the Santos-Dumont (1904) and before the Tank (1917). In 1928 came the first Tortue equipped with a monopusher chronograph, a model that was revived with some modern updates in 1998. Several of those updates are evident on the new watch, including the “apple”-shaped hands in blued steel, the hollowed-out central seconds hand, and triangular motifs in the dial’s corners. The two-register dial with elegant Roman numerals is bordered by a railway minute track, and the crown on the 43.7mm x 34.8mm turtle-shaped yellow-gold case is fitted with a monopusher to activate the chronograph’s start, stop, and reset functions. Powering these functions is the manually winding, exquisitely decorated Caliber 1928 MC, situated behind a sapphire caseback that spotlights the motion of the gear train, column wheel, and Geneva-wave-finished, beveled bridges.

[toc-section heading="Chopard Alpine Eagle XL Chrono"]

Price: $50,400, Case Size: 44mm, Case Height: 13.15mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 100 meters, Movement: Automatic Chopard Caliber 03.05-C

With the Alpine Eagle XL Chrono released in 2021, Chopard pairs its certified “ethical” rose gold with ceramized titanium for the 44-mm case with elegantly integrated chronograph pushers. The gold used for the bezel, crown, pushers and caseband is sourced from an ethical supply chain that Chopard established in 2018, and the bead-blasted ceramized titanium in the crown guards and caseback is exceptionally hard and corrosion-resistant. The textured-motif “Pitch Black” dials, inspired by an eagle’s iris, represent the intense blackness of Alpine mountain nights; the theme continues on the seconds hand, whose counterweight is shaped like an eagle feather. Chopard’s chronometer-certified, self-winding Caliber 03.05-C beats inside, behind a sapphire caseback, with a column wheel to drive the chronograph functions, including a built-in flyback mechanism.

[toc-section heading="Omega Speedmaster Professional Moonshine Gold"]

Price: $49,300, Case Size: 42mm, Lug Width: 20mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 50 meters, Movement: Manually Wound Omega Caliber 3861

Omega’s Speedmaster gained renown as the first watch on the moon, and the Swiss maker celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing in grand style in 2019 with the unveiling of a special tribute edition of the Speedmaster in a new precious metal called Moonshine Gold. Omega subsequently used the proprietary alloy, composed of yellow gold, silver and palladium, for the case of the Speedmaster “Gold Panda” edition in 2022, which features a dial made of the same material as the case and hosting three blackened subdials and indexes and a black ceramic tachymeter bezel. The watch is mounted on an integrated black rubber strap with a relief lunar-surface pattern on its inner side, a visual and tactile bonus for fans of the Moonwatch and its history. Purists will also appreciate the movement inside, Omega’s Caliber 3861, which is still manually wound, like the one that ticked on the moon back in the summer of '69,  but has also been enhanced with a co-axial escapement, a silicon balance spring, 50 hours of power reserve and 15,000 gauss of antimagnetic resistance.

[toc-section heading="Patek Philippe Ref. 5172G-001"]

Price: $97,150, Case Size: 41mm, Case Width: 11.45mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 30m, Movement: Manual-winding in-house Caliber CH 29-535 PS

Debuting in 2019 in white gold, Patek Philippe’s Ref. 5172G is the elegant descendant of the discontinued and fondly remembered Ref. 5710. Updated elements include the new, fully polished finish on the white-gold case, which measures 41 mm in diameter and 11.45 mm thick, a tad larger than its predecessor; the rounded chronograph pushers with guilloché treatment; the newly designed three-tiered lugs; and the applied Arabic numerals and baton-style, pointed-tip hands on the varnished, midnight-blue dial. Bordering the dial is a white transfer-print minute track and tachymeter ring; covering it is a curved, box-type sapphire crystal. Behind the sapphire exhibition caseback is Patek Philippe’s manufacture Caliber CH 29-535 PS, a manually winding, lavishly decorated, integrated chronograph movement with a column wheel, a horizontal clutch, and a 65-hour power reserve.

[toc-section heading="Rolex Cosmograph Daytona Le Mans Edition"]

Price: $56,000 (orig. retail), Case Size: 40mm, Thickness: 12.2mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 1000m, Movement: Automatic Caliber 4132

Rolex’s Daytona, introduced in 1963, is the quintessential racing chronograph and indisputably one of the most coveted watches in the world, whether in steel or precious metal. This special 18k white-gold edition, released in 2023 and discontinued about a year later, to celebrate the centennial of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, takes the watch’s collectibility to another level. Its 40mm gold case has a black Cerachrom bezel highlighted by a red ceramic “100” numeral on the tachymeter scale as an homage to the milestone year. Its exclusive in-house movement, Caliber 4132, has been specially modified with a chronograph hour counter that runs to a full 24 hours rather than the standard 12 hours, a nod to the length of the race. The dial is executed in the high-contrast “reverse panda” style defined by white subdials on a black dial, a visual tribute to actor and race car driver Paul Newman, who famously wore a Daytona with a similar dial. The movement is an evolution of Rolex’s Caliber 4130,  which is equipped with the Crown’s proprietary, energy-saving Chronergy escapement.

[toc-section heading="Vacheron Constantin Historiques Cornes de Vache 1955"]

Price: $72,500, Case Size: 38mm, Case Thickness: 10.8mm, Lug Width: 20mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 200 meters, Movement: Automatic Caliber 1150

In 1955, Vacheron Constantin released the highly collectible Reference 6087, its first chronograph with a waterproof case distinguished by its unusually shaped lugs that resembled the “horns of a cow” (cornes de vache in French). Vacheron revived the model, with some modern styling and a new movement, for its vintage-inspired Historiques collection in 2015. The distinctive pink-gold case is historically accurate in most of its detailing, including the mushroom-style chronograph pushers, grooved crown, and curvy cow-horn lugs. At 38.5 mm in diameter, it is slightly larger than the historical model’s 35 mm size, The mostly period-accurate dial has applied hour indexes, blued chronograph hands, and a tachymeter scale on its periphery, another holdover from the 1955 original. Vacheron’s manufacture Caliber 1142, ticking inside, has earned the prestigious Hallmark of Geneva for its high-horology decorations.

[toc-section heading="Zenith Chronomaster Original"]

Price: $24,500, Case Size: 38mm, Case Height: 12.6mm, Lug Width: 19mm, Crystal: Sapphire, Water Resistance: 50 meters, Movement: Automatic El Primero Caliber 3600

Zenith made its biggest impact on watchmaking history with its El Primero chronograph caliber, which debuted in 1969, and one of the very first watches to contain that groundbreaking high-frequency automatic movement has been resurrected for a modern audience as the Chronomaster Original. This model’s modest 38mm rose-gold case mimics the dimensions of the increasingly collectible vintage model, Ref. A386, and the tricolor execution of the three subdials — blue, silver, and gray — has become a visual shorthand for a watch with an El Primero movement. Beating behind a sapphire caseback at a brisk frequency of 36,600 vph, the movement's integrated chronograph can measure times to 1/10 second of accuracy. The dial’s central chronograph hand makes a complete sweep every 10 seconds rather than 60, tallying 60 seconds at 3 o’clock and 60 elapsed minutes at 9 o’clock, while the running seconds occupy the subdial at 9 o’clock.