What rarely cited historical or technical fact about Rolex do you know?

[padi56]

Perrelet invented the first self winding mechanism around 1770.Later Breguet improved it and called his winding system perpetuelles,now perhaps this is where Rolex got the idea to call there automatics Perpetual.But John Harwood from the Isle of Man UK around 1923 took out a UK patent for the very first automatic winding watch.Now he went on with backing to produce many thousands of these watches.But mainly owing to the depression in the mid 1920s to 1930s in the UK he went bust.Now old Hans of Rolex being a very clever but very shrewd man bought and took up this patent for the Rolex Watch Company. And in the very early 1930s incorporated it into the Borgel type oyster design case another one of Hans acquired patents.And also with the newly aquired Paul Perregaux and Georges Peret,waterproof screw down crown system a Swiss patent they took out in 1925 .Hans Wilsdorf quickly negotiated to have the Perregaux and Peret patent assigned to him. Wilsdorf then obtained a British patent on October 18, 1926. And with the Oyster case and this acquired Harwood patent auto wind mechanism that only then wound around 300 degrees.But Rolex did improved the design by the help of Hans brother in-law,who made it more efficient by winding a full 360 degrees.And a power reserve then of around 36 hours,after the auto watch and the oyster case Rolex really took off the rest is just pure marketing genius by Hans.

Wilsdorf came up with the name oyster while he was having a dinner party and having a hard time getting into an oyster. He made a remark to his guests that he hoped the new design of watch case would prove to be as resilient as this oyster mollusk

A Rolex watch played an important part in the real prisoner of war Great Escape in WW11 Corporal Clive James Nutting, one of the main organisers of the Great Escape.Now he ordered a stainless steel Rolex Oyster 3525 Chronograph by direct mail directly from Hans Wilsdorf in Geneva.It was sent to him with a promise that he would pay after the war had ended

The watch is believed to have been ordered specifically to be used for the Great Escape,because a chronograph could be used to time patrols of prison guards more accurately.And to time the 76 escapees through that very narrow tunnel called Harry on 24 March, 1944.

Nutting was only charged £15 pounds sterling for the watch after the war ended.