Where to Buy Rolex GMT-Master Watches | High-Price Purchases | JEWEL CAFE

Rolex's history began in London. Today, there are approximately 600 Swiss watchmaking companies, many of which were founded over 100 years ago. However, only a handful of them are still operating without interruption. One such company is Rolex, whose founder, Hans Wilsdorf, was born in Bavaria, Germany, in 1881. At the age of 12, he lost both parents, dropped out of school, and began working for Cuno Korten, a Swiss watchmaker in La Chaux-de-Fonds. There, he was tasked with exporting British watches, allowing him to develop his business acumen from a young age. In 1903, at the age of 22, he moved to London, and two years later, in 1905, he founded Wilsdorf & Davis, the predecessor to Rolex. Five years later, searching for a "creative and easy-to-pronounce word," he renamed his company to the Rolex brand we know today. In 1910, he entered into a partnership involving watch movements with Aegler, a Swiss company specializing in precision instrument manufacturing, and obtained the highest level of certification from the Swiss Chronometer Testing Institute (COSC).

In 1914, Rolex was awarded the highest honor by the Kew Observatory. Hans Wilsdorf's next goal was to develop a robust case capable of protecting the movement from dust and moisture. So in 1926, in collaboration with the Oyster Watch Co., he developed and patented a case made of perforated metal and a screw-down crown. Thus was born the Rolex Oyster, the signature Rolex movement that remains to this day. A legendary event made the Rolex Oyster famous worldwide: in 1927, a London stenographer named Mercedes Gleitze achieved the incredible feat of swimming across the Strait of Dover in 15 hours and 15 minutes, all while wearing her Rolex Oyster on her wrist.

The fact that Rolex was able to survive such extreme conditions demonstrated the exceptional water resistance of the Oyster case, which in turn spurred the development of waterproof watches among other manufacturers. The success of the Rolex Oyster made Rolex a worldwide household name for its watchmaking technology, and the company then turned its attention to developing a self-winding watch. In 1931, Rolex produced the first watch with a 360-degree automatic winding mechanism, thus overcoming the biggest problem with automatic winding up to that time: the poor efficiency of the winding mechanism. This technology dramatically improved winding efficiency, further enhancing Rolex's innovative capabilities.

The integration of the perpetual movement into the precious Rolex Oyster resulted in the Oyster Perpetual, nicknamed the "Bubbleback" in today's antiques market because the rotor that winds the mainspring is positioned above the movement, resulting in the watch being very thick due to the rounded back being bubble-like to accommodate the rotor. In 1945, another revolutionary invention was added to the Oyster Perpetual: the Datejust. As the name suggests, the date display automatically scrolled forward each day at midnight, a groundbreaking mechanism at the time. These three key inventions—the Oyster case in 1926, the Perpetual mechanism in 1931, and the Datejust mechanism in 1945—marked the perfection of practical Rolex watch design.