Timepieces Trade Market

Rolex : History

The early years of Hans Wilsdorf, born on 22 March 1881 in the North Bavarian town of Kulmbach, were distinctly lacking in lucky omens.
By the age of 12, he had lost both his parents.
However, their savings meant that he did not have to cut short his schooling and vocational.
When he was 19, he turned his back on his home town.
In the Swiss watch-making center of La Chaux-de-Fonds, Hans Wilsdorf undertook general office-work and English correspondence for a successful watch exporter.
In 1903, the worldly-wise and entrepreneurial Bavarian once again packed his bags to go and work in London for a prominent importer of watches.
But he didn't stay long there either, disapproving of the poor quality and want of good workmanship in the products for sale Wilsdorf wanted to give customers the best possible quality for their money.
And that he could only do as the head of his own business.
In 1905 he therefore established with a partner in London a watch dealership called Wilsdorf & Davis, the foundation of his future watch empire.
In the search for reliable suppliers, Wilsdorf considered the Aegler watch factory in Bienne, which, from 1900, had been producing watches with an easy-to-service 11-ligne precision lever movement.
In 1905 he traveled to Bienne where he signed a major contract, worth several hundred thousand Swiss francs, to sell Aegler wristwatches in Britain.
In 1908 he created the name for his own watch-brand: "Rolex" derived from "horlogerie exquise" (exquisite watchmaking).
To counter the widely held view at the time that wristwatches were merely gimmicks, Aegler had the precision of his 11-ligne lever movement officially tested by the Bienne timing laboratories.
The movement underwent a second test at the Kew observatory, England.
After a 44-day trial to marine-chronometer tolerances, it won a class "A" rating certificate.
Hans Wilsdorf then required Aegler to ensure that ail movements delivered met chronometer norms.
In the same year, the Les Fils de Jean Aegler watch company was merged into the Rolex Watch Co., Aegler S.A., Manufacture d'Horlogerie.
The long-established London operation was called Wilsdorf & Davis, Rolex Watch Company.
When the British government almost overnight raised import taxes by one third to finance the war, Wilsdorf moved his world export operations to Bienne.
The branch in London provided only its domestic market with Rolex watches - a collection of more than 200 different models for men and women.
On 17 January 1920, Wilsdorf founded Montres Rolex S.A. in Geneva, of which he was the sole owner and director.
From then on, Rolex movements were manufactured in Bienne. Assembly, quality control and sales were handled from Geneva.
The claim that wristwatches were ill protected by their cases from dirt and wet led Wilsdorf to identify and eliminate the trouble area.
In 1926 he patented a watch-case with a screw-down crown.
On 7 October 1927, a London shorthand-typist, Mercedes Gleitze, strapped the new "Oyster" model on her wrist and swam across the Channel in 15 hours and 15 minutes.
"The logical consequence of the Rolex Oyster was the creation of the self-winding watch in which the movement automatically winds itself over again, thus ensuring that it runs continuously," wrote Wilsdorf in his autobiography.
It was thus that Wilsdorf and the talented engineer, Emil Borer, developed an automatic movement in 1931.
With a freely spinning rotor, the "Rolex Perpetual was far ahead of its time.
Comprehensive patents excluded the competition from this practical rotor-winding System for the next 15 years.
To celebrate the firm's 40th anniversary in 1945, Rolex introduced the "Datejust," the first water-resistant wrist-chronometer with an automatic movement and a date in a window on the dial.
This combination of Rolex's major achievements laid the basis for its worldwide success, which continues to this day.
When Hans Wilsdorf died on 6 July 1960 in Geneva, he left behind a flourishing business that his successors developed into a multi-billon dollar enterprise, and Switzer-lands biggest industrial consumer of gold.