A company built on one obsession — keeping the outside world out of a watch — that ended up defining what a watch is supposed to be.
Hans Wilsdorf was twenty-four and running a watch export business in London when he and his brother-in-law Alfred Davis founded Wilsdorf and Davis in 1905. The wristwatch at the time was a woman's ornament; a serious man carried a pocket watch. Wilsdorf's bet was that this was about to reverse, and that the deciding factor would be whether a small movement could be made accurate and kept safe.
He registered the name Rolex in 1908 — short, pronounceable in any language, and it fits on a dial. In 1919 he moved the company to Geneva. Seven years later came the Oyster: a case that screwed together like a jar, with a screw-down crown, and the first commercially successful waterproof wristwatch. In October 1927 the swimmer Mercedes Gleitze wore one on a ribbon during an attempted Channel crossing; she did not finish the swim, but the watch came out of ten hours of cold salt water still running. Wilsdorf bought the front page of the Daily Mail on 24 November to say so.
The Perpetual rotor followed in 1931, and after that the models everyone can name: Datejust in 1945, Submariner in 1953, GMT-Master in 1955 at the request of Pan American World Airways, and the Cosmograph in 1963 — which only gained the word Daytona on its dial the following year. Since 1960 the company has been owned by the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation, a private trust, which is why Rolex answers to nobody and publishes nothing.
Chrono Chong Inc. is an independent watch dealer. We are not an authorized dealer for, and are not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by Rolex, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, Cartier, Omega, Tudor or any other manufacturer. All brand names, model names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners and are used here only to describe and discuss the watches we sell. These pages are historical background written by us; they are not published or approved by any manufacturer. Watches bought from an independent dealer are not covered by the manufacturer’s factory warranty. Read the full disclaimer.
