[Translate to english:] Anti-Magnetique Ref. 4062 18k Rose Gold
ROLEX is certainly the most famous watch brand in the world. ROLEX watches are cult, myth and legend alike. But what makes this watch brand so legendary?
At the beginning stood a man: Hans Wilsdorf born on 22 March 1881 in the Bavarian town of Kulmbach. His biography began with a stroke of fate - he lost both parents as a twelve-year-old and came into the care of his uncle. He completed a commercial apprenticeship and obtained a job as a foreign language correspondent at Cuno Kourten, a leading import and export company, which also served with watches, among other things. Wilsdorf became dependent of the "watch-virus" and established the watch trade Wilsdorf & Davis Ltd. in London, at that time the center of the industrial world - for Swiss watches. He bought high-quality Swiss watches at the Aegler watch factory in Biel and sold them in England.
In La Chaux-de-Fonds, the Swiss El- Dorado, he opened a branch. Within a year, the company was one of the largest companies in the European watch trade. In 1908 Wilsdorf registered the brand name "ROLEX" in the commercial register. He himself wrote about the choice of the name "ROLEX sounds good, is easy to keep and can also be pronounced in all European languages".
ROLEX was the first company to write the brand name on the dial, but it still took a few decades to see this renewal on all watches. In 1940 the five-pointed crown, which stood for the five fingers of one hand, was a synonym for the handwork of every ROLEX, written above the brand name. Today's design of the crown has existed since 1950.
Wilsdorf put all its eggs into one basket. He was firmly convinced that wrist watches would soon replace the pocket watches which were still dominant at the time. The customers, however, disagreed, many thought wrist watches were too small, too fragile, unmanly, imprecise, and much too sensitive to dust and moisture. In order to refute the objections of his customers, Wilsdorf had the accuracy of his wristwatches certified several times. In 1910, a ROLEX was the first in the world to receive the Swiss Certificate of Precision. In 1914, the British Kew Observatory awarded a ROLEX wristwatch the class A precision certificate, an award reserved exclusively for marine chronometers.
In view of the high import taxes on watches, Wilsdorf left England and founded the "Montres ROLEX S.A." in Geneva in 1919, the center of watchmaking. Wilsdorf is persevering to develop a completely sealed case. In September 1926 came the breakthrough. He presented, the first hermetically sealed case - the water-proof Oyster housing. The hardening test for the watch was the crossing of the English Channel by the English secretary Mercedes Gleitze. The attempt of the crossing failed, the ROLEX however functioned perfectly. The creative communication genius Wilsdorf understood how to use the media rumble around this event to its advantage. From this point onwards, the "Oyster" stood for high quality and helped the brand ROLEX to the world fame. The concept of testimonials was born.
A month later, the ROLEX founder filed a patent application with the Swiss Federal Office for Intellectual Property in Bern. Many ROLEX models still carry the "Oyster" seal of approval on their behalf. With this addition, ROLEX features its particularly robust and waterproof wristwatches.
Countless companies are now using prominent advertising media to draw attention to their products. ROLEX also proves pioneering in the marketing sector. ROLEX timepieces were always at the forefront, the first crossing of the English Channel, the first conquest of Mount Everest by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay and the first exploration of the Marian Trench. This is how it happened in 1960 when Jacques Piccard and Don Walsch equipped with the dive boat Bathyscape and a Rolex, reached a depth of 10.916 meters. Thus ROLEX watches are brought in connection with the achievements of outstanding personalities from different fields such as sports, research, culture and discovery.
Another innovation in watch history was the 360 ° centrifugal rotor, the perpetual rotor developed personally by Wilsdorf. In 1931 Wilsdorf had the so-called "Bubble Back" patented.
In 1954, the Explorer was launched, which can withstand the greatest temperature fluctuations undamaged, and at the same time it is the most puristic watch under the Rolex Toolwatches.
The ROLEX Oyster Perpetual is the first functional automatic wristwatch with rotor. The Perpetual rotor therefore represents the third quality feature of the Oyster, immediately after the chronometric precision and the water proofness. The developed rotor rotates indefinitely around its axis. The movement can thus be pulled up solely by the up and down movement of the wrist. This brilliant invention still forms the heart of every modern watch with an automatic winding mechanism.
In 1933 the name Rolesor was registered. Rolesor refers to the combination of gold and stainless steel, which is used by ROLEX watches. This combination of materials has become a distinctive, aesthetic recognition feature of the brand. It is still the fundamental pillar of the Oyster Collection.
"Datejust" unified all important ROLEX innovations - high precision, high water proofness, the automatic self-winding mechanism and the date in the viewing window at the 3 o'clock position of the dial. The magnifying glass above the date window, the so-called Cyclops eye, is an important recognition feature of the Datejust models.
In 1956, ROLEX presented the Oyster Perpetual Day-Date at the watch fair in Basel, the first watch that showed not only the date, but also the fully-featured weekday. On the popularity scale, the ROLEX Day-Date is at the top, it is considered a good asset and is the world's most copied watch. The simplicity and elegance of this dream watch convinced many personalities including John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Martin Luther King, Dalai Lama, Eric Clapton, Placido Domingo, Nadine Capellmann, Jackie Stewart and many more. In the same year, another model of the Oyster family was presented to the public - the Oyster Perpetual Milgauss, which by its constructive features was resistant to strong magnetic fields. This model was particularly popular with scientists from the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN).
Undoubtedly the most famous model of the ROLEX family - the Submariner, launched in Biel in 1953, is one of the best diving watches in the world. The Submariner with the typical black turn bezel, establishes the new genre of the diving watch! The sister model Sea-Dweller is water resistant till depths of 1,220. The first Sea-Dweller, striking due to the missing date magnifier, came on the market in 1971.
The current Rolex Sea Dweller / Deepsea model, one of the most resistant watches in the world, survived a waterproofness to nearly 3,900 meters of diving depth without damage. At a depth of 3,900 meters, the watch glass must withstand the force of about 3 tons. Before sale, every Deepsea model is tested in a specially developed pressure tank.
With the upcoming of transcontinental flights in the 1950s, the development of a pilot watch was also in the foreseeable future. At the request of Pan American Airlines (Pan Am), ROLEX S. A created a GMT master. The watch, which allows the display of two different time zones simultaneously. The eye-catcher was the blue-red bezel. Despite some new editions the GMT-Master has not lost its fascination to this day. Just as with the Porsche 911, the designers of the Rolex house also make the latest model look like one of its predecessors.
In 1960 the visionary genius Hans Wilsdorf died. He left a considerable lifework.
Already during his lifetime, the ROLEX patriarch, who had remained childless, had the entire company capital of Montres ROLEX S.A. transferred to the non-profit Hans Wilsdorf Foundation - to secure the survival of his company.
In 1963 Rolex introduced the Daytona. Named after the city of Daytona in Florida, which looks back on a long racing and motor sport tradition. Since 1962 Rolex is the main sponsor of the Daytona Beach race. Sir Malcom Campell, one of the most successful racers on the track, who improved his own world records year after year, was an enthusiastic ROLEX sponsor. A telegram to ROLEX confirms the robustness of his Oyster: "Yesterday during the record attempt, a ROLEX watch was worn, runs despite a heavy load - still magnificent".
The Daytona Cosmograph is considered the sport chronograph par excellence. The arrangement of the auxiliary dials for the hours and minutes on the three and the nine is still relevant in terms of clarity and functionality. The COSC certification speaks for the accuracy. The quality seal of the Swiss testing institute guarantees a deviation of a few seconds during the day.
The so-called Paul Newman "Daytona" - the variant with the eye-catching dial, the "Exotic Dial", is the most popular vintage watch by ROLEX. In the past 25 years, the market price for a PN Daytona has risen and is now traded for the multiple of the original selling price.
The name of the famous actor and racing driver, Steve McQueen, is often linked to the Rolex Model 1655 Explorer II. The fact is that there are no pictures showing him with this watch on the wrist, instead there are evidence showing Steve McQueen with a Rolex Submariner.
One thing is certain, ROLEX belongs to the most prestigious brands in the world. However, exact sales figures are not published - discretion is a top priority. The opening of the 158,000-square-meter production facility in Plan-les-Quates in 2005 shows the size of the industrial enterprise.
The brand with the crown in the emblem, is one of the few companies that manufactures almost all parts of the watches themselves. It is said that ROLEX, which employs about 6000 people, is the largest gold processor in Switzerland. No processing is left to chance. From the moulding of the gold alloys, e.g. the patented "Everose" red gold alloy, all the way through to the mechanical processing and the assembly of the components of the timepieces, case, dial and bracelet is all made at ROLEX.
According to reliable estimates, ROLEX produces around 800,000 watches annually, as well as the approximately 200,000 watches of the sister brand Tudor.
Tudor was launched by Wilsdorf in 1926 as an alternative: "I have been thinking about the production of a watch for several years, which can be sold more cheaply by our retailers than our ROLEX, which is just as reliable. For this reason we founded the company Montres Tudor S.A.“
No other luxury watch is as popular as the ROLEX watch. A ROLEX is equally a statistic symbol and a kind of insurance, because a ROLEX on the wrist means money. Either way, ROLEX is and remains a myth, an icon of the Swiss luxury watch industry.
