Whenever I'm wearing a watch someone is bound to ask me what time it is. Unfortunately for them, I only wear a watch for decoration so it's usually never set to the right time. I'm not a huge watch fan [except for Nick Lachey's Jacob & Co. watch he received from then wife Jessica Simpson] but I can appreciate the luxury behind a Rolex. That, and a friend has harassed me to the point that I've decided to learn more.
Rolex is a Swiss manufacturer of high-quality, luxury wristwatches. They are also the largest single luxury watch brand in the world, producing about two thousand watches per day.
In 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.
Just three years later, Wilsdorf registered the trademark "Rolex" and opened an office in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. The word "Rolex" 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. He also thought that the name "Rolex" sounded like a watch being wound and 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". In 1919, Wilsdorf moved the company to Geneva, Switzerland where it was established as the Rolex Watch Company. Its name was later changed to Montres Rolex, SA and finally Rolex, SA.
Upon the death of his wife in 1944, Wilsdorf established the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation in which he left all of his Rolex shares, making sure that some of the company's income would go to charity. The company is still owned by a private trust and shares are not traded on any stock exchange.
The company has paved the way for many innovations in watchmaking; automatic and quartz movements, water resistant cases [up to 11,000 metres under water], and the first watch to show two time zones at once.
Probably the coolest piece of history for the company was its involvement in criminal activity in 1996. 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 Platt's body was found in the English Channel, 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 Platt was identified as the owner of the watch and the victim of the murder. In addition British police were able to determine the date of death by examining the date on the watch calendar and since the Rolex movement had a reserve of two to three days of operation when inactive and was fully waterproof, they were able to determine the time of death within a small margin of error.
The company designs three major lines; Professional, Cellini, and the Oyster Perpetual [pictured in stainless steel with a silver dial and bold Roman markers]. And if Jacob & Co. is more your style, you can find a Rolex adorned with precious jewels, but with far more history and luxury behind it.
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