Rolex SA () is a British-founded Swiss
watch
A watch is a portable timepiece intended to be carried or worn by a person. It is designed to keep a consistent movement despite the motions caused by the person's activities. A wristwatch is designed to be worn around the wrist, attached b ...
designer and manufacturer based in
Geneva
, neighboring_municipalities= Carouge, Chêne-Bougeries, Cologny, Lancy, Grand-Saconnex, Pregny-Chambésy, Vernier, Veyrier
, website = https://www.geneve.ch/
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevr ...
, Switzerland.
Founded in 1905 as ''Wilsdorf and Davis'' by
Hans Wilsdorf
Hans Wilsdorf (22 March 1881 – 6 July 1960) was a German businessman, best known as the founder of Rolex and Tudor. Wilsdorf's philosophy for the companies was 'Only great marketing is needed to make a company successful'
Early life
Hans ...
and Alfred Davis in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, the company registered ''Rolex'' as the brand name of its watches in 1908 and became ''Rolex Watch Co. Ltd.'' in 1915.
After
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, the company moved its base of operations to Geneva because of the unfavorable economy in the United Kingdom. In 1920, Hans Wilsdorf registered ''Montres Rolex SA'' in Geneva as the new company name (''montre'' is French for wristwatch); it later became ''Rolex SA''.
Since 1960, the company has been owned by the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation, a private family trust.
Rolex SA and its subsidiary
Montres Tudor SA
Montres Tudor SA, or simply Tudor, is a Swiss watchmaker based in Geneva, Switzerland. Registered in 1926 by Hans Wilsdorf, founder of Rolex, the brand remains a sister company to Rolex; both companies are owned by the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation. ...
design, make, distribute, and service wristwatches sold under the Rolex and Tudor brands.
History
Early history
![Image Rolex6613](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Image_Rolex6613.png)
Alfred Davis and his brother-in-law
Hans Wilsdorf
Hans Wilsdorf (22 March 1881 – 6 July 1960) was a German businessman, best known as the founder of Rolex and Tudor. Wilsdorf's philosophy for the companies was 'Only great marketing is needed to make a company successful'
Early life
Hans ...
founded ''Wilsdorf and Davis'', the company that would eventually become ''Rolex SA'', in London in 1905.
Wilsdorf and Davis's main commercial activity at the time involved importing Hermann Aegler's Swiss
movements to England and placing them in watch cases made by Dennison and others. These early wristwatches were sold to many jewellers, who then put their own names on the dial. The earliest watches from Wilsdorf and Davis were usually hallmarked "W&D" inside the caseback.
In 1908, Wilsdorf registered the trademark "Rolex", which became the brand name of watches from Wilsdorf and Davis. He opened an office in
La Chaux-de-Fonds
La Chaux-de-Fonds () is a Swiss city in the canton of Neuchâtel. It is located in the Jura mountains at an altitude of 1000 m, a few kilometers south of the French border. After Geneva, Lausanne and Fribourg, it is the fourth largest city l ...
, Switzerland.
Wilsdorf wanted the brand name to be easily pronounceable in any language, and short enough to fit on the face of a watch.
He also thought that the name "Rolex" was
onomatopoeic, sounding like a watch being wound.
In November 1915, the company changed its name to ''Rolex Watch Co. Ltd.''
In 1919, Hans Wilsdorf moved the company from England to Geneva, Switzerland, because of heavy post-war taxes levied on luxury imports and high export duties on the silver and gold used for the watch cases. In 1920 the company's name was officially changed to ''Montres Rolex SA'' and later to ''Rolex'' SA
''
With administrative worries attended to, Wilsdorf turned the company's attention to a marketing challenge: the infiltration of dust and moisture under the dial and crown, which damaged the movement. To address this problem, in 1926 a third-party casemaker produced a waterproof and dustproof wristwatch for Rolex, giving it the name "Oyster". The original patent attributed to Paul Perregaux and Georges Peret, that allowed the watch to be adjusted while maintaining protection from water ingress was purchased – not invented – by Rolex and heavily marketed. The watch featured a hermetically sealed case which provided optimal protection for the movement.
As a demonstration, Rolex submerged Oyster models in aquariums, which it displayed in the windows of its main points of sale. In 1927, British swimmer
Mercedes Gleitze
Mercedes Carey (née Gleitze; 18 November 1900 – 9 February 1981) was a British professional swimmer. She was the first known person to swim the Straits of Gibraltar and the first British woman to swim the English Channel. The name of Merce ...
swam the
English Channel
The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" (Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), (Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kana ...
with an Oyster on her necklace, becoming the first Rolex ambassador. To celebrate the feat, Rolex published a full-page advertisement on the front page of the ''
Daily Mail'' for every issue for a whole month proclaiming the watch's success during the ten hour plus swim.
In 1931, Rolex patented a self-winding mechanism called a Perpetual rotor, a semi-circular plate that relies on gravity to move freely. In turn, the Oyster watch became known as the Oyster Perpetual.
Upon the death of his wife in 1944, Wilsdorf established the ''Hans Wilsdorf Foundation'', a private trust, in which he left all of his Rolex shares, ensuring that some of the company's income would go to charity. Wilsdorf died in 1960, and since then the trust has owned and run Rolex SA.
Recent development
The Hans Wilsdorf Foundation, which privately owns Rolex SA, is a registered Swiss charitable foundation and pays a lower tax rate.
In 2011, a spokesman for Rolex declined to provide evidence regarding the amount of charitable donations made by the Wilsdorf Foundation, which brought up several scandals due to the lack of transparency.
In Geneva where the company is based, it is said to have gifted, among many things, two housing buildings to social institutions of Geneva.
According to the 2017 Brand Z report, the brand value is estimated at $8.053 billion.
Rolex watches continue to have a reputation as
status symbols.
The company produces more than 1,000,000 timepieces each year.
It is said that "The power of the Crown is never more felt than when trying to negotiate space in a retail environment for the product of another brand".
Tudor SA
![Tudor Prince Date Day Ref76200](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Tudor_Prince_Date_Day_Ref76200.jpg)
Rolex SA offers products under the Rolex and Tudor brands.
Montres Tudor SA
Montres Tudor SA, or simply Tudor, is a Swiss watchmaker based in Geneva, Switzerland. Registered in 1926 by Hans Wilsdorf, founder of Rolex, the brand remains a sister company to Rolex; both companies are owned by the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation. ...
has designed, manufactured and marketed Tudor watches since 6 March 1946. Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf conceived Tudor to create a product for authorized Rolex dealers to sell that offered the reliability and dependability of a Rolex, but at a lower price.
The number of Rolex watches was limited by the rate that they could produce in-house Rolex movements, thus Tudor watches were originally equipped with off-the-shelf movements while using similar quality cases and bracelets.
Historically, Tudor watches have been manufactured by Montres Tudor SA using movements supplied by
ETA SA
ETA SA Manufacture Horlogère Suisse (ETA SA Swiss Watch Manufacturer) designs and manufactures quartz watches and both hand-wound and automatic-winding mechanical and movements. Commonly referred to as ETA, the company is headquartered in Gren ...
. Since 2015, Tudor has begun to manufacture watches with in-house movements. The first model introduced with an in-house movement was the Tudor North Flag. Following this, updated versions of the Tudor Pelagos and Tudor Heritage Black Bay have also been fitted with an in-house caliber.
Tudor watches are marketed and sold in most countries around the world. Montres Tudor SA discontinued sales of Tudor-branded watches in the United States in 2004, but Tudor returned to the United States market in the summer of 2013 and to the UK in 2014.
Watch manufacturing
![Rolex GMTIIC](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Rolex_GMTIIC.jpg)
While Rolex mostly produces
mechanical watch
A mechanical watch is a watch that uses a clockwork mechanism to measure the passage of time, as opposed to quartz watches which function using the vibration modes of a piezoelectric quartz tuning fork, or radio watches, which are quartz wat ...
es, it also participated in development of the original
quartz watch
Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical form ...
movements. Although Rolex has made very few quartz models for its Oyster line, the company's engineers were instrumental in design and implementation of the technology during the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1968, Rolex collaborated with a consortium of 16 Swiss watch manufacturers to develop the ''Beta 21'' quartz movement used in their Rolex ''Quartz Date'' 5100 alongside other manufactures including the
Omega Electroquartz
The Omega Electroquartz was introduced in 1969 as the first production Swiss quartz watch. It was the collaboration of 20 Swiss watch companies and the movement was utilised by Rolex, Patek Phillipe and Omega SA amongst others. The Beta 21 movement ...
watches. Within about five years of research, design, and development, Rolex created the "clean-slate" 5035/5055 movement that would eventually power the Rolex
Oysterquartz.
Material-wise, Rolex first used its "Cerachrom" ceramic bezel on the GMT-Master II in 2005, and has since then implemented ceramic bezel inserts across the range of professional sports watches. They are available on the Submariner, Sea Dweller, Deepsea, GMT Master II, and Daytona models. In contrast to the aluminum bezel which it replaced, the ceramic bezel color does not wear out from exposure to UV-light and is scratch resistant.
Rolex uses 904L grade stainless-steel; in contrast, most Swiss watches are made with 316L grade steel. Rolex uses the higher grade, as it is more resistant to corrosion and when polished, leaves a more beautiful luster.
Rolex serial numbers
Each Rolex comes with a unique serial number, which can help indicate its approximate production period. Serial numbers were first introduced in 1926 and were issued sequentially, until 1954, when Rolex restarted from #999,999 to #0. In 1987, there was an addition of one letter to a 6-digit serial number and in 2010, to the present date Rolex introduced random serial numbers.
Notable inventions
Among the company's innovations are:
* In 1910, the first watchmaker to earn
chronometer certification for a small lady wristwatch.
* In 1926, produced the Oyster case, the first reliable waterproof wristwatch case that was based on a screw-down crown. To this end, Rolex acquired the Perragaux-Perret screw-down patent, added a clutch and combined the screw-down crown with a threaded case back and bezel. Wilsdorf even had a specially made Rolex watch (the watch was called the "DeepSea") attached to the side of
''Trieste'', which went to the bottom of the
Mariana Trench
The Mariana Trench is an oceanic trench located in the western Pacific Ocean, about east of the Mariana Islands; it is the deepest oceanic trench on Earth. It is crescent-shaped and measures about in length and in width. The maximum known ...
. The watch survived and tested as having kept perfect time during its descent and ascent. This was confirmed by a telegram sent to Rolex the following day saying "Am happy to confirm that even at 11,000 metres your watch is as precise as on the surface. Best regards,
Jacques Piccard
Jacques Piccard (28 July 19221 November 2008) was a Swiss oceanographer and engineer, known for having developed underwater submarines for studying ocean currents. In the Challenger Deep, he and Lt. Don Walsh of the United States Navy were the f ...
".
Earlier waterproof watches such as the "Submarine Watch" by Tavannes used other means to seal the case.
* In 1931, released a wristwatch winding mechanism featuring a rotor, a full 360 degrees rotating weight to power the watch by the movement of the wearer's arm. As well as making watch winding unnecessary, it also kept the power from the mainspring more consistent, resulting in more reliable timekeeping. Fully rotating weights later became part of the standard winding mechanism of
self-winding wristwatches. A preceding self-winding mechanism by Harwood instead used a weight that moved in a 270 degrees arc hitting buffer springs on both sides.
* In 1945, introduced the first chronometer wristwatch with an automatically changing date on the dial (
Rolex Datejust
The Rolex Oyster Perpetual Datejust is a certified, self-winding chronometer wristwatch manufactured by Rolex. When it was launched in 1945, the Datejust was the first self-winding chronometer wristwatch to indicate the date in a window on th ...
Ref. 4467).
An earlier wristwatch with a date changing mechanism by Mimo was not chronometer certified.
* In 1953, released a case waterproof to 100 m (330 ft) (
Rolex Oyster Perpetual Submariner Ref.6204, 1953). Although this has been commonly publicized as the first diving watch, Omega made 21 years earlier, in 1932, the Marine, which could stand 135mts, 35mts more than the 1953 Rolex Submariner, and also Blancpain produced before Rolex their Fifty Fathoms in 1953, 10 months before Rolex.
* In 1954, produced a wristwatch which showed two time zones at once (
Rolex GMT Master ref.6542, 1954). Yet again, it was not the first company to do so, as the Longines DualTime preceded the GMT by a full quarter of a century.
* In 1956, made a wristwatch with an automatically changing day and date on the dial (
Rolex Day-Date
The Rolex Oyster Perpetual Day-Date is a COSC certified, self-winding chronometer manufactured by Rolex. Initially presented in 1956, the Day-Date was the first watch to display the date as well as the day, spelled in full.
The calendar displ ...
, 1956).
Counterfeits
Rolex watches are frequently
counterfeited and often illegally sold on the street and online. Counterfeit Rolex watches vary in quality: some use cheap movements, while others use
automatic movements, and some use an
ETA
Eta (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἦτα ''ē̂ta'' or ell, ήτα ''ita'' ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative in most dialects, ...
movement.
O. J. Simpson wore a counterfeit Rolex during his 1994
murder trial.
Notable models
In general, Rolex has three watch lines: ''Oyster Perpetual'', ''Professional'' and ''Cellini'' (the Cellini line is Rolex's line of "dress" watches). The primary bracelets for the Oyster line are named ''Jubilee'', ''Oyster'', ''President'', and ''Pearlmaster''. The watch straps on the models are usually either stainless steel, yellow gold, white gold, or rose gold. In the United Kingdom, the retail price for the stainless steel 'Pilots' range (such as the
GMT Master II) starts from
GBP
Sterling (abbreviation: stg; Other spelling styles, such as STG and Stg, are also seen. ISO code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of its associated territories. The pound ( sign: £) is the main unit of sterling, and t ...
5,600. Diamond inlay watches are more expensive. The book ''Vintage Wristwatches'' by ''
Antiques Roadshow
''Antiques Roadshow'' is a British television programme broadcast by the BBC in which antiques appraisers travel to various regions of the United Kingdom (and occasionally in other countries) to appraise antiques brought in by local people ( ...
''s Reyne Haines listed a price estimate of vintage Rolex watches that ranged between US$650 and US$75,000, while listing vintage Tudors between US$250 and US$9,000.
Most expensive pieces
![Cosmo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Cosmo.jpg)
* On October 26, 2017, a
Rolex Daytona
The Rolex Cosmograph Daytona is a mechanical chronograph wristwatch designed to meet the needs of racing drivers by measuring elapsed time and calculating average speed. Its name refers to Daytona, Florida, where racing flourished in the early 20 ...
(Ref. 6239) wristwatch, manufactured in 1968, was sold by
Phillips in its
New York auction for US$17.75 million.
The watch was originally purchased by
Joanne Woodward
Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward (born February 27, 1930) is an American actress. A star since the Golden Age of Hollywood, Woodward made her career breakthrough in the 1950s and earned esteem and respect playing complex women with a charact ...
in 1968 and was given by Joanne to her husband
Paul Newman as a gift. The auction price set a record at $15.5 million, plus buyer's premium of 12.5%, for a final price of $17,752,500 in New York City. As of 2018, it is the
most expensive wristwatch and the second most expensive watch ever sold at auction.
Notably, "
the time that Newman gave the watch to James Cox
s a gift the watch was selling for about $200."
* On May 28, 2018, a Rolex Daytona "Unicorn" Ref. 6265 was sold in auction by Phillips for US$5.937 million in Geneva, making it the second most expensive Rolex timepiece ever sold at auction (as of 2018).
* The most expensive Rolex (in terms of
retail price
A price is the (usually not negative) quantity of payment or compensation given by one party to another in return for goods or services. In some situations, the price of production has a different name. If the product is a "good" in the ...
) ever produced by the Rolex factory was the GMT Ice reference 116769TBR with a retail price of US$485,350. A ''
Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...
'' magazine article on the Swiss watch industry compared the retail value of Rolex to that of competing brands
Corum,
Universal Genève
Universal Genève SA is a Swiss Made, Swiss Luxury goods, luxury watch company, founded in 1894 as Universal Watch. Since its beginnings, the company has produced complete watches with in-house movements, and throughout the 20th century, distribut ...
and
IWC.
Air-Kings
Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf created the Air - Prince line to honor
RAF
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
pilots of the Battle of Britain, releasing the first model in 1958. By 2007, the 1142XX iteration of the Air-King featured a COSC-certified movement in a 34mm case, considered by some a miniaturized variant of the 39mm Rolex Explorer as both watches featured very similar styling cues; the 34mm Air-King lineup was the least expensive series of Oyster Perpetual. In 2014 the Air-King was dropped, making the Oyster Perpetual 26/31/34/36/39 the entry-level Rolex line. In 2016 Rolex reintroduced the Air-King, available as a single model (number 116900), largely similar to its predecessors but with a larger 40mm case, and a magnetic shield found on the Rolex Milgauss; indeed the new 40mm Air-King is slightly cheaper than the 39mm Explorer (the Explorer lacks the magnetic shield but its movement has Paraflex shock absorbers that are not found in the Air-King's movement).
Oyster Perpetual
The name of the watch line in catalogs is often "Rolex Oyster ______" or "Rolex Oyster Perpetual ______"; Rolex Oyster and Oyster Perpetual are generic names and not specific product lines, except for the Oyster Perpetual 26/31/34/36/39/41 and Oyster Perpetual Date 34. The Rolex Oyster Perpetual watch is a direct descendant of the original watertight Rolex Oyster watch created in 1926.
Within the Oyster Perpetual lineup, there are three different movements; the 39 features the Calibre 3132 movement with the Parachrom hairspring and Paraflex shock absorbers (the Oyster Perpetual 39 is a variant of the Rolex Explorer 39mm, sharing the same case, bracelet and clasp, bezel, and movement, with a different dial and different hands), while the 34 and 36 models have the Caliber 3130 featuring the Parachrom hairspring, and the smallest 28 and 31 models have Calibre 2231. The Oyster Perpetual Date 34 (or simply Date 34) adds a date display and date movement, plus the options of a white gold fluted bezel and diamonds on the dial.
Certain models from the Date and Datejust ranges are almost identical, however the Datejust have 36 mm and 41 mm cases paired with a 20 mm bracelet, compared with the Date's 34 mm case and 19 mm bracelet. Modern versions of the Oyster Perpetual Date and Datejust models share Rolex's 3135 movement, with the most recent change to the 3135 movement being introduction of Rolex's "parachrom bleu" hairspring, which provides increased accuracy. As the Date and Datejust share a movement, both have the ability to adjust the date forward one day at a time without adjusting the time; this feature is not confined to the Datejust. Compared with the Date, the Datejust has a much wider range of customization options, including other metals beyond stainless steel, various materials for the dial, and optional diamonds on the dial and bezel. The Datejust II, which was released in 2009, has a bigger case (41mm diameter) than the standard Datejust and features an updated movement, being only available in steel with white, yellow or rose gold on an Oyster bracelet. In 2016, Rolex released the Datejust 41, which has the same 41mm diameter case as the Datejust II, however the Datejust 41 has smaller indexes and a thinner bezel compared to the Datejust II.
Professional collections
![Rolex deepsea](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Rolex_deepsea.jpg)
Rolex produced specific models suitable for the extremes of
deep-sea diving,
caving
Caving – also known as spelunking in the United States and Canada and potholing in the United Kingdom and Ireland – is the recreational pastime of exploring wild cave systems (as distinguished from show caves). In contrast, speleology i ...
,
mountain climbing
Mountaineering or alpinism, is a set of outdoor activities that involves ascending tall mountains. Mountaineering-related activities include traditional outdoor climbing, skiing, and traversing via ferratas. Indoor climbing, sport climbing, a ...
,
polar exploration
Polar exploration is the process of exploration of the polar regions of Earth – the Arctic region and Antarctica – particularly with the goal of reaching the North Pole and South Pole, respectively. Historically, this was accompli ...
, and aviation. Early professional models included the
Rolex Submariner
The Rolex Oyster Perpetual Submariner is a line of sports watches designed for diving and manufactured by Rolex, resistant to water and corrosion. The first Submariner was introduced to the public in 1954 at the Basel Watch Fair. It was the fir ...
(1953) and the
Rolex Sea Dweller (1967). The latter watch has a
helium release valve
A helium release valve, helium escape valve or gas escape valve is a feature found on some diving watches intended for saturation diving using helium based breathing gas.
When saturation divers operate at great depths, they live under pressure ...
, co-invented with Swiss watchmaker
Doxa
Doxa (; from verb ) Liddell, Henry George, and Robert Scott. 1940.δοκέω" In ''A Greek-English Lexicon'', edited by H. S. Jones and R. McKenzie. Oxford. Clarendon Press. – via Perseus Project. is a common belief or popular opinion. In cla ...
, to release helium gas build-up during decompression.
The Explorer (1953) and Explorer II (1971) were developed specifically for explorers who would navigate rough terrain, such as the world-famous
Mount Everest expeditions
Mount is often used as part of the name of specific mountains, e.g. Mount Everest.
Mount or Mounts may also refer to:
Places
* Mount, Cornwall, a village in Warleggan parish, England
* Mount, Perranzabuloe, a hamlet in Perranzabuloe parish, C ...
. Indeed, the Rolex Explorer was launched to celebrate the successful ascent of Everest in 1953 by the expeditionary team led by Sir John Hunt.
The 39 mm Rolex Explorer was designed as a "tool watch" for rugged use, hence its movement has Paraflex shock absorbers which give them higher shock resistance than other Rolex watches.
The 42mm Rolex Explorer II has some significant differences from the 39mm Explorer; the Explorer II adds a date function, and an orange 24-hour hand which is paired with the fixed bezel's black 24-hour markers for situations underground or around the poles where day cannot be distinguished from night.
Another iconic model is the
Rolex GMT Master (1955), originally developed at the request of
Pan Am Airways to provide its crews with a dual-time watch that could be used to display local time and GMT (
Greenwich Mean Time
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the Local mean time, mean solar time at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, counted from midnight. At different times in the past, it has been calculated in different ways, i ...
), which was the international time standard for aviation at that time (and still is in its modern variant of
Universal Time Coordinated
Coordinated Universal Time or UTC is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is within about one second of mean solar time (such as UT1) at 0° longitude (at the IERS Reference Meridian as the currently used ...
(UTC) or
Zulu Time
Coordinated Universal Time or UTC is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is within about one second of mean solar time (such as UT1) at 0° longitude (at the IERS Reference Meridian as the currently use ...
) and was needed for
astronavigation
Celestial navigation, also known as astronavigation, is the practice of position fixing using stars and other celestial bodies that enables a navigator to accurately determine their actual current physical position in space (or on the surface o ...
(celestial navigation) during longer flights.
Historic events
POWs and the ''Great Escape''
By the start of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
,
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
pilots were buying Rolex watches to replace their inferior standard-issue watches; however, when captured and sent to
prisoner of war
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
Belligerents hold prisoners of wa ...
(POW) camps, their watches were confiscated.
When Hans Wilsdorf heard of this, he offered to replace all watches that had been confiscated and not require payment until the end of the war, if the officers would write to Rolex and explain the circumstances of their loss and where they were being held. Wilsdorf was in personal charge of the scheme.
As a result of this, an estimated 3,000 Rolex watches were ordered by British officers in the officer camp
Oflag VII-B
Oflag VII-B was a World War II German prisoner-of-war camp for officers (''Offizierlager''), located in Eichstätt, Bavaria, about north of Munich.
Camp history
The camp was built in September 1939 to house Polish prisoners from the German inv ...
in
Bavaria
Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
alone.
This had the effect of raising the morale among the allied POWs because it indicated that Wilsdorf did not believe that the
Axis powers
The Axis powers, ; it, Potenze dell'Asse ; ja, 枢軸国 ''Sūjikukoku'', group=nb originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis, was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against the Allies. Its principal members were ...
would win the war.
American servicemen heard about this when stationed in Europe during WWII and this helped open up the American market to Rolex after the war.
On 10 March 1943, while still a prisoner of war, Corporal Clive James Nutting, one of the organizers of the
Great Escape, ordered a stainless steel Rolex Oyster 3525 Chronograph (valued at a current equivalent of £1,200) by mail directly from Hans Wilsdorf in Geneva, intending to pay for it with money he saved working as a shoemaker at the camp.
[Times online](_blank)
For sale: Rolex sent by mail order to Stalag Luft III by Bojan Pancevski in Vienna 12 May 2007 The watch (Rolex watch no. 185983)
was delivered to
Stalag Luft III on 10 July that year along with a note from Wilsdorf apologising for any delay in processing the order and explaining that an English gentleman such as Corporal Nutting "should not even think" about paying for the watch before the end of the war.
Wilsdorf is reported to have been impressed with Nutting because, although not an officer, he had ordered the expensive Rolex 3525 Oyster chronograph while most other prisoners ordered the much cheaper Rolex Speed King model which was popular because of its small size.
The watch is believed to have been ordered specifically to be used in the Great Escape when, as a chronograph, it could have been used to time patrols of prison guards or time the 76 ill-fated escapees through tunnel 'Harry' on 24 March 1944.
Eventually, after the war, Nutting was sent an invoice of only £15 for the watch, because of currency export controls in England at the time.
The watch and associated correspondence between Wilsdorf and Nutting were sold at an auction for £66,000 in May 2007, while at an earlier auction in September 2006 the same watch fetched A$54,000.
[Australian auction house](_blank)
Through Internet Archive Nutting served as a consultant for both the 1950 film ''
The Wooden Horse
''The Wooden Horse'' is a 1950 British Second World War war film directed by Jack Lee and starring Leo Genn, David Tomlinson and Anthony Steel. It is based on the book of the same name by Eric Williams, who also wrote the screenplay.
The f ...
'' and the 1963 film ''
The Great Escape''.
Related murder investigations
In a famous murder case, the Rolex on Ronald Platt's wrist eventually led to the arrest of his murderer,
Albert Johnson Walker—a financial planner who had fled from Canada when he was charged with 18 counts of fraud, theft, and money laundering. When the body was found in the
English Channel
The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" (Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), (Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kana ...
in 1996 by a fisherman named John Coprik,
a Rolex wristwatch was the only identifiable object on the body.
Since the Rolex movement had a serial number and was engraved with special markings every time it was serviced,
British police traced the service records from Rolex and identified the owner of the watch as Ronald Platt. In addition, British police were able to determine the date of death by examining the date on the watch calendar. Since the Rolex movement was fully waterproof and had a reserve of two days of operation when inactive, they were able to determine the time of death within a small margin of error.
[Discovery Channel Documentary on Ronald Platt's murder]
Also, in
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
, on 20 April 1998, Jonaris Badlishah, a 23-year-old
Malaysian
Malaysian may refer to:
* Something from or related to Malaysia, a country in Southeast Asia
* Malaysian Malay, a dialect of Malay language spoken mainly in Malaysia
* Malaysian people, people who are identified with the country of Malaysia regard ...
freelance photographer, wielded a hammer to attack 42-year-old beautician Sally Poh Bee Eng, and killed her by inflicting more than ten blows on her head, leaving behind several fatal skull fractures. After killing Poh, Jonaris stole her Rolex watch, which he later gifted to his Thai prostitute girlfriend as a birthday gift (this was also his motive for murdering Poh). The case, which became known as the "
Rolex watch murder
In the early morning hours of 20 April 1998, in Marina South, Central, Singapore, a 23-year-old Malaysian named Jonaris Badlishah, who was the nephew of the Sultan of Kedah, brutally murdered 42-year-old beautician Sally Poh Bee Eng in order to r ...
" made headlines and shocked the whole of Singapore. Jonaris was later arrested and after a 19-day trial, he was
sentenced to death
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
in December 1998 for murder, and later executed after losing his appeal.
Sponsorship
Rolex sponsors several celebrities to wear and advertise their watches. Rolex is the top spender in advertising and marketing in the watch industry since 2000 after they overtook Timex for the number 1 spot.
Rolex has also been the official timekeeper to the
Le Mans 24 Hours motor race since 2001. Former Formula 1 driver
Jackie Stewart
Sir John Young Stewart (born 11 June 1939), known as Jackie Stewart, is a British former Formula One racing driver from Scotland. Nicknamed the "Flying Scot", he competed in Formula One between 1965 and 1973, winning three World Drivers' Cha ...
has advertised Rolex since 1968. Others who have done so for some years include
Gary Player
Gary James Player DMS, OIG (born 1 November 1935) is a South African retired professional golfer who is widely considered to be one of the greatest golfers of all time. During his career, Player won nine major championships on the regular tou ...
,
Arnold Palmer
Arnold Daniel Palmer (September 10, 1929 – September 25, 2016) was an American professional golfer who is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most charismatic players in the sport's history. Dating back to 1955, he won numerous ev ...
,
Roger Penske
Roger Searle Penske (born February 20, 1937) is an American businessman and entrepreneur involved in professional auto racing and a retired professional auto racing driver. He is most famous for his ownership of Team Penske, DJR Team Penske, t ...
,
Jean-Claude Killy
Jean-Claude Killy (born 30 August 1943) is a French former World Cup alpine ski racer. He dominated the sport in the late 1960s, and was a triple Olympic champion, winning the three alpine events at the 1968 Winter Olympics, becoming the most su ...
, and
Kiri Te Kanawa. It is also the sponsor of the Rolex
International Jumping Riders Club Top 10 Final competition.
Jacques Piccard
Jacques Piccard (28 July 19221 November 2008) was a Swiss oceanographer and engineer, known for having developed underwater submarines for studying ocean currents. In the Challenger Deep, he and Lt. Don Walsh of the United States Navy were the f ...
and
Don Walsh
Don Walsh (born November 2, 1931) is an American oceanographer, explorer and marine policy specialist. He and Jacques Piccard were aboard the bathyscaphe ''Trieste'' when it made a record maximum descent into the Challenger Deep on January 2 ...
had a specially designed experimental Rolex Oyster Perpetual Deep-Sea Special strapped to the outside of their bathyscaphe during the 1960
Challenger Deep
The Challenger Deep is the deepest-known point of the seabed of Earth, with a depth of by direct measurement from deep-diving submersibles, remotely operated underwater vehicles and benthic landers, and (sometimes) slightly more by sonar bathym ...
dive to a world-record depth of . When
James Cameron
James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian filmmaker. A major figure in the post-New Hollywood era, he is considered one of the industry's most innovative filmmakers, regularly pushing the boundaries of cinematic capability w ...
conducted a similar dive in 2012, a specially designed and manufactured Rolex Oyster Perpetual Sea-Dweller Deep Sea Challenge watch was being "worn" by his submarine's robotic arm.
Mercedes Gleitze
Mercedes Carey (née Gleitze; 18 November 1900 – 9 February 1981) was a British professional swimmer. She was the first known person to swim the Straits of Gibraltar and the first British woman to swim the English Channel. The name of Merce ...
was the first British woman to swim the English Channel on 7 October 1927. However, as John E. Brozek (author of ''The Rolex Report: An Unauthorized Reference Book for the Rolex Enthusiast'') points out in his article "The Vindication Swim, Mercedes Gleitze and Rolex take the plunge", some doubts were cast on her achievement when a hoaxer claimed to have made a faster swim only four days later. Hence Gleitze attempted a repeat swim with extensive publicity on 21 October, dubbed the "Vindication Swim". For promotional purposes, Wilsdorf offered her one of the earliest Rolex Oysters if she would wear it during the attempt. After more than 10 hours, in water that was much colder than during her first swim, she was pulled from the sea semi-conscious seven miles short of her goal. Although she did not complete the second crossing, a journalist for ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' wrote, "Having regard to the general conditions, the endurance of Miss Gleitze surprised the doctors, journalists and experts who were present, for it seemed unlikely that she would be able to withstand the cold for so long. It was a good performance." As she sat in the boat, the same journalist made a discovery and reported it as follows: "Hanging round her neck by a ribbon on this swim, Miss Gleitze carried a small gold watch, which was found this evening to have kept good time throughout." When examined closely, the watch was found to be dry inside and in perfect condition. One month later, on 24 November 1927, Wilsdorf launched the Rolex Oyster watch in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
with a full front page Rolex advertisement in the ''
Daily Mail''.
See also
* ''
Boule de Genève
A Boule de Genève (Geneva ball) is a type of pendant watch in the shape of a small ball or sphere originating from Geneva, (Switzerland). The dial is usually at the bottom of the sphere facing the floor, at the opposite side of the jump ring on ...
''
*
List of watch manufacturers
Watchmakers
This list is a duplicate of :Watchmakers, which will likely be more up-to-date and complete. Manufacturers that are named after the founder are sorted by surname. Names in this list require an article about the watch brand or watchma ...
*
Rolex Tower
The Rolex Tower is a 59-floor tower in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The tower has a total structural height of 235 m (771 ft). Construction of the Rolex Tower was completed in 2010; the tower's inauguration was 7 November 2010. The b ...
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
1905 establishments in England
Luxury brands
Clothing companies established in 1905
Companies based in Geneva
Privately held companies of Switzerland
Swiss watch brands
Watch manufacturing companies of Switzerland