I've said this somewhere else but I'll say it again, the 20k range Daytonas are generally polished and pretty shagged out, they don't hold up as well due to the bezel either, and the bezel makes them wear a lot smaller than they should.
Even in 30k range from dealers there's a lot of junk floating around, but really when you separate the hype and Paul Newman ownership, its not a great watch, its small, its lugs are boring and unattractive, and its expensive due to speculators and people jumping on the bandwagon.
Speedmasters were undervalued as hell a few years ago, especially Cal 321s and are now shooting up, with nice 2998s on par with most of those lower end Daytonas now and Christies are even doing a dedicated Speedmaster auction soon. The Speedmaster is a better watch, its bigger, its more contemporary, and its more interesting, it has a history beyond a movie star and dealer hype.
The Carrera is in the same category as the Speedmaster, it wears bigger, it feels more clean and contemporary, its lugs make it far more interesting and attractive, and its still undervalued, such that if market forces were taken out of the equation and the two were priced similarly I'd take the Carrera in a heartbeat.
There's a reason these Daytonas sat on shelves collecting dust at ADs for below retail before the collector market for them took off decades later, there were many better chronographs out there.
If you lined up those three chronographs in front of a woman, not a man who's heard about the Daytona and knows how much they cost, and ask her which she likes the most, the Rolex will be bottom of the barrel every time.
Click to expand...