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Unlike many other websites that have special rules and lots of fine print , Bobswatches. There can be no watch house less in need of an introduction than Rolex. It is a brand whose name echoes beyond the boundaries of our industry. Synonymous with luxury, interchangeable with quality, imbued with a heritage that no amount of money, spin, or PR stunts can synthesize, Rolex almost occupies its own territory.
Sometime during the last decade, the brand founded by a wide-eyed Hans Wilsdorf in has transmogrified. It is no longer a watch brand, but rather a phenomenon. The rules do not apply to this relentless juggernaut as it rolls over all-comers. No, when it comes to playing the game, Rolex has a distinct, insurmountable advantage: It wrote the rule book. The Swiss based Company manufactures, services and distributes wristwatches under the Rolex and Tudor brand through authorized dealers.
It was founded in by Hans Wilsdorf and Alfred Davis in London, England and was recently ranked 57 on the worlds most powerful brands. The original name of the company was Wilsdorf and Davis, and in , operations were relocated to Geneva, Switzerland.
The brand today produces industry icons such as the Rolex Submariner , Daytona, and GMT-Master, and competes with other leading luxury watch companies like Patek Philippe, Omega, and Panerai and sponsors many major sports events in tennis, golf, yachting, and racing.
To understand why Rolex has so much sway over the industry and the trends therein, we have to go back to the beginning, back to the dawn of the 20th century and into the mind of a young entrepreneur, who believed he had struck upon an idea that would put his fledgling company on the map.
He founded the watch making company in London where they specialized in importing Hermann Aegler's quality movements and then placing them in quality watch cases made by companies such as Dennison. The duo distributed the timepieces to jewelers that added their names to the wristwatches.
Wilsdorf registered "Rolex" as a trademark and opened their first Switzerland office in La Chaux-de-Fonds. It has been said that Wilsdorf wanted his brand to be easy to pronounced in any language. The word "Rolex" was also said to sound like a watch being wound according to Wilsdorf. In , thanks to Wilsdorf's high standards and the excellence of Maison Aegler's output, a Rolex wristwatch became the first wristwatch to be awarded an independently ratified certificate of chronometric performance meaning the watch was unbiasedly judged to be a superlative timekeeper.
The first such test took place in Bienne in Switzerland, nearby Maison Aegler. This was an exciting distinction considering that normally the award was given exclusively to marine chronometers.
It was the very first time a wristwatch had achieved this honor in England and paved the way for Rolex to become one of the most respected brands in the world for its chronometric performance. But Hans Wilsdorf was not satisfied with just timekeeping excellence.
When he established his company in , he had set out with a very clear goal: to produce watches that were able to accompany their owner through the adventure of life. Although his watches kept excellent time throughout static chronometer tests, Wilsdorf wanted to ensure that they would continue to perform their primary function no matter their environment.
Wartime taxes imposed on luxury items caused Wilsdorf to leave England in The levies on silver and gold, which were metals that were used in the production of Rolex watches, became too costly. Wilsdorf decided it would be beneficial to relocate to Geneva so that he could work more closely with his suppliers in Bienne. Wilsdorf had been creating watches for just 21 years before the seminal release of the Rolex Oyster case in It was to be a game-changing model.
With that release, the company was at once placed on a stratospheric trajectory. Not only was it up to the prescribed task, but it also boasted an iconic aesthetic thanks to the fluted bezel and caseback, which had been included for practical reasons: The notches on the bezel and caseback enabled both components to be screwed down to the middle case using a special tool invented by Rolex, thus hermetically sealing the case.
So confident in its ability to keep the inner workings of a movement dry was Wilsdorf, that he implored famous Channel swimmer, Mercedes Gleitze to wear one around her neck on her ill-fated Chanel crossing attempt of Five years later, Wilsdorf achieved his own personal Holy Grail - the creation of a self-winding wristwatch. The combination of the water-resistant and dust-proof case, along with an automatic movement secured Wilsdorf's finest creation a place in the pantheon of great watchmaking advancements.
What followed over the next 50 years was a series of model releases that would go on to define the watchmaking landscape for a generation. Each release by the now-storied brand became a classic. The s brought us the prolific Datejust model. Less than a decade after that significant release, the Submariner followed in Two years later, the first GMT-Master debuted.
Before the decade was out, the Day-Date and the Milgauss had joined the Rolex ranks. Along with creating Rolex, Wilsdorf also founded the high-quality yet lower priced Tudor brand of watches.
This subsidiary company was founded in Wilsdorf continued to grow both companies and produce quality and innovative timepieces until his death in It is often possible for a brand to consume the reputation of its founder, but in the early years, and, even up until his death in , Wilsdorf was an active, driving force within his company, and his personality was stamped on every product produced on his watch.
The '60s got off to a bang with the launch of the Deep-Sea Extra Special which would give rise to the extant Sea-Dweller first released in Between those two aquatic releases, the very first Cosmograph Daytona hit the shelves in The Rolex Oyster was also dust-proof with both screw-down caseback and crown lined with rubber.
She wore it round her neck and when she got into trouble, icy cold and half-conscious at 10 hours in, the inside of her Rolex was as dry as a bone. They never lost a second. The watch given to Hillary was never purchased commercially. Rolex was one of the sponsors of the trip that year and part of this included providing Hillary with this watch to wear during the climb and then to return to Rolex for extensive testing after the descent. Even during descent and extreme pressure, the watch, which was attached to the side, maintained time.
Rolex is currently owned by the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation, which finds the largest scholarship endowment in Europe. Rolex is not owned by an individual and so the trustees of the foundation oversee how profits are distributed.
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