Rolex BrandStory

Rolex watches are indisputably some of the most popular and coveted timepieces on the planet, and every watch enthusiast has their own ideas about (and often their own criteria for) what the best Rolex watches are. But how much do you really know about how your favorite Rolex model came about, why exactly it's so special and distinct from all the rest, and in some cases why it is historically significant to the watch industry as a whole? In this feature, we take a tour through nine of the most important and/or interesting Rolex watches, from their original conception to their place in the modern horological canon. 

Origins of an Icon

The most famous Swiss watch brand in the world was originally not even Swiss: it was founded by a German in the United Kingdom. Hans Wilsdorf (1861-1960), an orphan raised by his uncles in Kulmbach, Germany, learned entrepreneurship and self-sufficiency early in life, and began his career in the Swiss watch industry in 1900 when he started as a clerk at the watchmaking firm of Cuno Korten in La Chaux-de-Fonds, responsible for the maintenance and accuracy of hundreds of pocket watches per day. In 1905, two years after moving to London, Wilsdorf (below) partnered with another businessman named Alfred Davis to establish Wilsdorf & Davis, the company that would become Rolex. Wilsdorf & Davis, based in London’s Hatton Garden commercial district, was founded with a mandate to make reliably precise watches at affordable prices. 

In 1914, days before the outbreak of World War I, Wilsdorf changed the name of the company to “The Rolex Watch Company Ltd.” and shortly thereafter shifted its focus from pocket watches to “wristlets,” or wrist-worn watches. Wilsdorf, an early believer in the commercial potential of wristwatches, would later state in an autobiography that the name “Rolex” came to him via a “genie” whispering in his ear while he was running an array of different alphabetical combinations through his mind during a horse-drawn carriage ride through London. As many would note thereafter, it was also a brand name that was easy to spell and to pronounce in many languages while also being short enough to fit elegantly on a watch dial.

Oyster Meets Perpetual

Almost immediately upon this reinvention of his company, Wilsdorf set his mind toward tackling a challenge that had plagued watchmakers for the first decades of their existence: developing a case that could withstand being submerged in water. In 1926, Wilsdorf introduced the first Oyster case, whose innovative design combined a threaded, hermetically sealed caseback and a crown that screwed securely into the side of the case for a water resistance never before achieved in watches. It took its name from the bivalve mollusk whose traits it emulated, except that its function was the opposite, with the two “shells” of the case clamping tight to keep water outside, rather than inside. The first Oyster watches, released that year (example above), took their name from the groundbreaking invention. One year later, in what would become the first of many celebrity-driven marketing initiatives over the years, Rolex partnered with Mercedes Gleitze, a British professional swimmer, for a widely publicized campaign. Gleitze wore a Rolex Oyster on a necklace during her first (unsuccessful) attempt to become the first woman to swim the English Channel. The watch was still ticking when she returned to shore, allowing Rolex to tout the waterproofness of its watch in a big way in subsequent advertisements. 

 

Rolex watches had already become renowned for their accuracy, having won chronometry competitions as early as 1910. In 1931, Wilsdorf’s other quest came to fruition with the development of a patented, self-winding movement with a weighted mass that served to wind the mainspring via the motion of the wearer’s arm. Because this type of movement (above) kept the watch constantly wound as long as it was being worn, it was referred to, then and now, as “Perpetual.” It wasn’t the first self-winding, or “automatic” movement in a wristwatch — that would be the one patented by British watchmaker John Harwood in 1923 — but it was a development that spurred other watch manufacturers to begin adopting the technology in their own products. Most of Rolex's most popular models today fall under the Oyster Perpetual banner, including the watches showcased here, each representing a historically important pillar of Rolex's collection while offering its own singular charm. 

Best Rolex Watch for Divers and Strivers:

Rolex Submariner (1953)

Rolex’s history in the field of diving and waterproof watches is long, prestigious, and far too rich to sum up here. However, no single timepiece embodies that history more eloquently than the Submariner, a watch that treads the line between tool watch and luxury totem more deftly than just about any other model in modern horology. Like other Rolex icons, the Submariner (vintage model pictured above) originally came as a response to consumer demand brought about by a cultural shift. After World War II, diving had evolved to become a recreational and commercial pursuit rather than strictly a military skill set, and Jacques Cousteau’s historic invention of the Aqualung ensured that this new generation of recreational divers could remain underwater for longer periods. Thus, a new type of watch was needed that enabled a diver to keep track of his air supply. 

Rolex, which had already pioneered the waterproof Oyster case, and had built the first military-issued dive watches for the Italian firm Panerai in the 1930s and ‘40s, was one of the first watchmakers to respond to this demand in the seminal year of 1953, along with Blancpain and Zodiac. The first Submariner was Ref. 6204, which established the template for the model — 37mm steel Oyster case, black dial with inverted triangle at 12 o’clock, alternating circle and bar indexes at the hour markers, and a unidirectionally rotating bezel with a 60-minute scale that a diver could set to keep track of his time underwater. The Submariner was touted as the first watch that was waterproof to 100 meters — a significant claim, as the other iconic dive watch that had preceded it to market, the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms, was tested only to the 91.44 meters that matched up to its name. Subsequent references of the Submariner, starting with the Ref. 6205, added the familiar Mercedes handset and even more robust water-resistance ratings, of 200 meters, and eventually 300 meters, which is the standard for the model today. The first models were equipped with the automatic A260 caliber; today’s Submariners contain Rolex’s Caliber 3235, which offers chronometer-certified accuracy and reliability as well as a power reserve of 70 hours. 

As alluded to above, many fans of the Rolex Submariner still regard it as the original “James Bond Watch.” Sean Connery wore one, specifically a Ref. 6538, in the first three Bond movies from 1962 to 1964. The watch's association with the suave superspy undoubtedly aided in its transition from pure sport watch to sport-luxury icon over the years. Rolex, however, continued to challenge the frontiers of underwater endurance even as its groundbreaking dive watch was going mainstream. In 1971, Rolex introduced the Sea-Dweller, a larger and even more heavy-duty version of the Submariner that was aimed at professional saturation divers; its case was depth-tested to an astounding 610 meters and fitted with an automatic helium release valve to aid in decompression; today’s Sea-Dweller tops out at a bone-crushing 1,200 meters of water resistance. The Rolex Deepsea Sea Dweller, introduced in 2008, shattered even this record with its water-resistance rating of 3,900 meters.

Best Rolex Watch for Everyday Elegance:

Rolex Datejust (1945)

Perhaps surprisingly to those of us who follow the breakneck pace of advancements in today’s watch world, it took more than a decade for Rolex to offer both the robustness of the Oyster case and the convenience of the Perpetual movement in a single timepiece. The Rolex Datejust, unveiled in 1945, was the first Rolex watch with the now familiar phrase “Oyster Perpetual” spelled out on the dial. The watch was also the first to feature the now-ubiquitous date display at 3 o’clock, the first automatic watch with a quick-change function for that date display, and the first to be mounted on Rolex’s now-famous five-row Jubilee bracelet. A few years later, in 1948, came the first Datejust with the bubble-shaped “Cyclops” lens directly above the date aperture, which magnified the date numeral by a factor of 2.5 for greater legibility at a glance. Rolex filed for a patent on the Cyclops lens in 1952. Legend has it that Wilsdorf came up with the feature after his second wife lamented to him how difficult it was for her to read the date on her watch, and that the idea came to him after a droplet of water fell onto his watch’s crystal over the date window while he was washing his hands in the bathroom. 

The first Datejust (Ref. 4467), originally only offered in yellow gold and containing the chronometer-certified, self-winding Caliber A295, established the familiar aesthetic of the Datejust models, most notably the fluted bezel and clean, elegant dial with triangular indexes. The earliest models used a bright red numerical font for the date, an element that was eventually abandoned as the Cyclops lens became common throughout the line. The Datejust has been a mainstay in the Rolex collection ever since, retaining its 36mm case size and upgrading over the years to more advanced movements as Rolex continually upgrades its technological savoir-faire. In 2009, Rolex introduced the Datejust II (since superseded by the Datejust 41 in 2016), which features an expanded case size of 41mm and contains Rolex’s in-house, COSC-certified perpetual Caliber 3136 inside its 100-meter water resistant case. 

Best Rolex Watch to Start Your Collection:

Rolex Air-King (1945)

Released the same year as the Datejust was a trio of timepieces that celebrated the accomplishments of Britain’s Royal Air Force in the wake of the Allied victory in World War II. (Wilsdorf had moved Rolex’s headquarters to Geneva, Switzerland, in 1920 due to unfavorable economic conditions in the U.K., but the company retained an affinity for its British roots.) The so-called “Air Series” comprised two models that are long discontinued, the Air-Giant and Air-Tiger, and the one that is still being produced, the Air-King (vintage example above). Despite being the oldest continuously produced model in Rolex’s star-studded lineup, the Air-King has never attained the levels of mainstream popularity and collectability enjoyed by household-name watches like the Daytona, Submariner, GMT-Master, and others, but it remains for many a very desirable “entry-level” Rolex watch due to its history and its affordable price relative to those other models. 

The Air-King, originally designed “to honor the pioneers of aviation,” has undergone a number of evolutions throughout the years. The original model’s 34mm case (considered large at the time, believe it or not), cream-colored dial and manual wind movement would eventually be replaced by the now-familiar design that was revamped in 2016: a black dial with a 60-minute scale and inverted triangle at the 12 o’clock/60-minute position (a feature of historical pilots’ watches); large 3, 6, and 9 Arabic numerals at their respective positions; and a retro-font “Air-King” logo slightly below center.of the “Mercedes”-style handset. In 2022, Rolex updated the Air King further, adding crown guards to its 40mm case for increased sturdiness as well as consistency with its siblings in Rolex’s Professional line; an upgraded movement, the automatic, in-house Caliber 3230; and most notably the double-digit “05” applied numeral on the dial’s scale to replace the single-digit “5” that preceded it, for an even more streamlined look. More on the 2022 revival of the Rolex Air-King here.

Best Rolex Watch for Outdoor Adventure:

Rolex Explorer (1953)

The Rolex Explorer is known chiefly as the watch that was worn by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay on their historic expedition to the summit of Mount Everest in 1953, the same year the watch debuted. The model’s aesthetic roots reach back farther, to the 5020 “Ovettone” series of watches that Rolex made in the 1940s. The nickname “Ovettone,” Italian for “big egg,” referred to those watches’ monobloc Oyster cases, which were not only larger than usual for the time (36mm, at a time when most men’s watches, including those from Rolex, averaged 32mm to 33mm). They were also notable for their domed casebacks (called “bubbleback” and necessitated by the thickness of the perpetual movement inside them at the time) and crystals. The successor 6298 series, with three-part cases replacing the monobloc ones, are today considered the prototypes for the modern Rolex Explorer. The watch that Rolex actually provided for Hilary and Norgay’s mission was the “pre-Explorer” Ref. 6098, equipped with the automatic Caliber A296, which was never produced commercially, but the worldwide fame garnered by the successful summit provided all the marketing juice that Rolex needed for the launch of the mountaineering-themed timepiece that it released that year, Ref. 6350 (above), the first “official” Rolex Explorer. (Much more detail on the watch and its origins can be found here. 

It was the preceding Ref. 6150, which didn’t have “Explorer” printed on the dial, which nevertheless established the emblematic Explorer dial layout: inverted triangle at 12 o’clock, numerals at 3, 6, and 9 o’clock, Mercedes-style hour hand and pencil-shaped minute hand, and bar indexes at the other hour positions. Its steel case measured 36mm, like those of the watches carried on the Everest expedition. The Ref. 1016 that followed shortly thereafter is the longest-lasting of the Explorer references, worn by many enthusiasts over its decades of production including James Bond creator Ian Fleming (below). In fact, that reference is considered by some Bond nerds to be the “real” James Bond Rolex watch rather than the Submariner (which we’ll explore below), since Fleming described 007’s watch in the novels with attributes very similar to those of his own personal Explorer.

In 1971, Rolex launched a version of the Explorer with a GMT function, naming it the Explorer II, thus retroactively making the original three-hand model the Explorer I. Rolex produces only two versions of the Explorer I in its current collection, one in all-steel (Rolex calls its “Oystersteel”), the other in the brand’s steel-and-gold “Rolesor” combo, both with the original 36mm case dimensions.