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Rolex – Timeless Luxury
By admin | August 6, 2010
History of Rolex watchesIn 1905 Hans Wilsdorf and his brother-in-law Alfred Davis founded “Wilsdorf and Davis” in London. Their main business at the time was importing Hermann Aegler’s Swiss movements to England and placing them in quality watch cases made by Dennison and others. These early wristwatches were sold to 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” and opened an office in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. The company name “Rolex” was registered on 15 November 1915. The word was made up, but its origin is obscure. Wilsdorf was said to want his watch brand’s name to be easily pronounceable in any language. It was short enough to fit on the face of a watch. One story, never confirmed by Wilsdorf, is that the name came from the French phrase horlogerie exquise, meaning “exquisite clockwork”.
The book The Best of Time: Rolex watches: An Unauthorized History by Jeffrey P. Hess and James Dowling says that the name was just made up.Rolex watches are amont the most luxurious Swiss brands since 1905. The company has invented several pinoneer ideas in luxury watchmaking since the beginning of the 20th century. Among the company’s innovations are:• The first wristwatch with an automatically changing date on the dial (Rolex Datejust, 1945)[7]• The first wristwatch with an automatically changing day and date on the dial (Rolex Day-Date)• The first wristwatch case waterproof to 100 m (330 ft) (Rolex Oyster Perpetual Submariner, 1953)• The first wristwatch to show two time zones at once (Rolex GMT Master, 1954)• The first watchmaker to earn chronometer certification for a wristwatch[9]• Automatic movementsThe first self-winding Rolex wristwatch was offered to the public in 1931, preceded to the market by Harwood which patented the design in 1923 and produced the first self-winding watch in 1928, powered by an internal mechanism that used the movement of the wearer’s arm. This not only made watch-winding unnecessary, but kept the power from the mainspring more consistent resulting in more reliable time keeping.
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