Something different to alignment points, is it safe etc.

[padi56]

RWC Early Years.
During the Rolex early period many different types of watches were made, and Rolex did not have complete control over their movement factory, they were only a minority shareholder. The full name of the company tells the story "Aegler, Société Anonyme,Horologies D Excellence Fabrique des Montres Rolex & Gruen Guild A.," this means, in translation, Aegler incorporated, manufacturer of Rolex & Gruen Guild A Watches. At this time ownership of the factory was split between three parties, Herman Aegler (movements), (Hans Wilsdorf of Rolex) and the Gruen brothers, Frederick Gruen and George Gruen.Now Aegler manufactured movements for both companies, who then sold the completed watches in their respective territories; Wilsdorf of Rolex, throughout Europe, Asia and the British Empire; whilst the Gruen brothers sold in the US only.

This arrangement worked well until Rolex acquired the patent for the the Oyster case; now they had something new and special which they wished to sell all over the world, not just in their limited territory. However the three way partnership prohibited Rolex from selling their products with Aegler movement in the Gruen brothers' territory (and vice-versa). So Hans of Rolex being a very clever and shrewd man, took a sideways move and fitted their new Oyster cases with a movement from FHF (Fontmelon) factory just down the road from Gruen and then tried to find a US distributor. They came across the firm of Abercrombie and Fitch,this was then a store specialising in sportsman's' equipment; whether you wanted to go elephant shooting in Africa, fishing for salmon or trout in Scotland, Abercrombie and Fitch was the place you went for all your equipment. Everything from fishing rods to double barrelled shotguns could be found under their roof. As the sportsman's store they seemed the ideal place to sell the first oyster watches, which were already building a reputation as the sportsman's watch. It may have seemed the ideal place but it did not work out that way, firstly because Rolex sold the cheaper down-market version of their watches in a high end store, and also because Abercrombie & Fitch did not advertise the watch sufficiently.

Now these Abercrombie & Fitch watches are probably the rarest of all the cushion oysters, in all my life I have only ever seen one; it was signed "Abercrombie and Fitch (Seafarer) on the dial and the case and movement were signed Oyster Watch Company.The case was quite badly pitted because then they were made from a base metal, a chromed zinc material that did not last very long,a bit like the relationship between Rolex and Abercrombie & Fitch.Now they went on to become the USA distributor for The Swiss Heuer watches, probably more of a sportsman's watch to speak of, being mainly chronograph type watches.


After a couple of years in the wilderness Rolex decided to give the US market another try. This was after they had been approached by Zell Brothers, a jewellery store chain in the Pacific Northwest of the USA, headquartered in Seattle. Zell had seen the great success of Rolex in Canada, and in Vancouver in particular (Seattle and Vancouver are only about 150km apart). They asked to be made the exclusive importer for Rolex in the Pacific Northwest, and Rolex eager to get a USA foot hold accepted their proposal. The strange thing is that, despite the Canadian success either Zell or Rolex decided not to use the famed "Oyster" name but substituted the name Turtle Timer, (IMHO undoubtedly Zell) Once again these were non-Aegler (non-Rolex) movements, so as not to disturb the three way relationship with Gruen. Zell were much more successful than Abercrombie/Fitch had been, but can hardly be described as having made a major market breakthrough. I have seen around 5 or 6 pictures of these watches and because they were made when Rolex was using real stainless steel the cases looked to have lasted much better than the A&F ones ever did. But Zell had two major problems as far as Rolex were concerned; firstly they were a regional not national chain and their insistence on using their own Turtle Timer name and not Oyster meant that Rolex would never reap the benefit of any of the new oyster case success.Now in these early days of Rolex only about 1 in 5 had the name Rolex on the Dial,the rest were blank dials when they left the factory.But after the arrival of the oyster case most of the oyster cased ones did have the name Rolex on the dial,but still only a few companies were still allowed,to put there names on the dial like Goldsmiths,Asprey, Bucherer plus a few more.Tiffany were the final store retailers name to ever to be seen on a Rolex dial, and now any genuine Tiffany named Rolex mainly the sports models bring high prices indeed

Now most of these problems were solved when Rolex gained the right to enter the US market themselves when the Gruen brothers left the board of Aegler in mid 1930s selling their shares to the two remaining parties; their place on the board of the company was taken by Emil Borer who really invented the oyster case,and who was Herman Aegler's brother in law, the technical director of Rolex, and much more significantly the man who supposedly invented the Perpetual movement for the company. But the RWC got the patent for the first auto wrist watch from John Harwood from the Isle of Man UK he made the first auto wind wristwatch .Now this new movement was the first one from Aegler (Rolex), that was not made available to Gruen, and so gave Rolex a unique advantage when they were able to take advantage of their new found ability to enter the US market; which they did just as the US entered WW11, around 1942.

And now the only current company for whom Rolex will "co-brand" a watch is COMEX; an acronym made up of the letters from the company's full name COmpagnie Maritime d'EXpertise. COMEX as everyone now knows are the world's leaders in the provision of diving services to exploration companies all over the globe. It was in November 1967 that A. Zilbach, a Rolex technician who had worked in close collaboration with COMEX received the Swiss patent number 492,246 for a helium escape valve,shared with Doxa to rush it though. This was the result of experiments carried out with early 5513 Submariners which had been fitted with prototypes of this escape valve.These watches were used by COMEX divers for over 2 years without any problems and so the decision was made to produce a standard watch with this feature; it was, of course, the SD. The largest bulk purchaser of these watches was and is COMEX; every diver who works for the company is issued with one and to prevent the watches from being "misplaced" Rolex print the name of the company on the dial of every watch. COMEX themselves also engrave the rear of the watch with their name and a unique serial number. These watches now have become incredibly collectible because they are the ONLY Rolex watch still being produced with another name on the dial.It is somewhat ironic that after almost 90 years of some different retailers' names on some Rolex dials. The only one left is a company who do did not ever sell watches,and that's Comex.

[REFZ]

Thanks for the info Peter.

[Buzzlite]

Very good thank you

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[waikeekee]

Goodness and blind me! What happen to paragraphing? An old guy like me has difficulty reading after the 5th line.


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[padi56]

Originally Posted by waikeekee

Goodness and blind me! What happen to paragraphing? An old guy like me has difficulty reading after the 5th line.


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Very sorry its so difficult for you to read,myself just over 75 years old and in quite poor health.Yet I took the time to write and try and educate some of you guys, thank you for your remarks, now you have a nice day.

[sleddog]

Thanks for sharing some history Peter!

[Chewbacca]

Thanks for posting, Peter.

The first half was unbeknownst to me prior to reading.

[DocHolliday]

Thank you Peter. Very interesting to read.


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[calh22a]

Thanks for sharing and taking the time to write this OP. It’s always nice to be able to learn some of the history behind these watches.

[Sarosh]

That was interesting Peter, thank you for taking the time to write it. Feel better soon :-)

[Uclaman]

So the current SD43 is also in use by comex? Does anyone have pictures?

[marc2828]

Terrific post! Useful and interesting history. Much appreciate a non repetitive post on this board. This type of post keeps me coming back, as much as I am happy someone landed a Batman or Pepsi and/or needs help with dust on his Rolex, this is far more attractive. Bravo. And as a side note, if the font is too small, hold ctrl button and scroll your mouse wheel...it zooms a web page.

[Dubshack]

Thanks for sharing, Peter.


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[waikeekee]

Originally Posted by padi56

Very sorry its so difficult for you to read,myself just over 75 years old and in quite poor health.Yet I took the time to write and try and educate some of you guys, thank you for your remarks, now you have a nice day.

LOL,,, Yes and I sincerely thank you for all your selfless effort. I have actually learned a lot from you. I had to use a ruler to read, btw, and it is really good of you to share. You too, have a good weekend.


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[Brew]

Yahoo! Some real Rolex substance to go with my coffee. Interesting content, and I sure learned more than a thing or two here. Thank you, Peter!!!

[minute_man]

Thank you Peter. This is what this forum is (should be) about.

[1WatchDawg]

Thanks for you informative post. Your knowledge of Rolex is amazing.

[erhein]

Very interesting. Thank you for posting this.

[037]

Originally Posted by padi56

Very sorry its so difficult for you to read,myself just over 75 years old and in quite poor health.

Same age as my father. I can relate.

Great info regardless. Passing history along is like apprenticing under a seasoned watchmaker. If we don't share then it gets lost forever. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers

[nachopc]

Thank you for this wonderful lines, this is Rolex University. Absolutely Top !


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[schoolboy]

Thanks for sharing Peter

Worth the read


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[GarageBMW]

Hi Peter, thank you very much for this great read full of history. This morning I went through issue 8 of the Rolex Magazine but found your post oh so much more interesting and filled with great history details.

[RXAPPP]

A good read - thanks for sharing

[soho]

Excellent read thank you Peter.


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[Bigblu10]

Great read Peter and thank you for taking the time to write it. Wish I could hop on a plane to Wales and sit down and enjoy a beer with you and talk watches and life! It would no doubt be informative. Cheers!

[BakerView]

Thank you. It's this type of info sharing that makes this site spectacular. And we can all chose to read which items we want as they pertain to our interests. Thanks for the effort. I thoroughly enjoyed the read.

[Pw92676]

A wealth of knowledge here. Thank you so much for sharing this.

[cajerseyboy]

Such a great contributor to the TRF community. Thanks for the knowledge! Have a great weekend!


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[Sal_UKSheffield]

Incredible- to see where rolex started and where it is now is truly astounding

You hear alot about marketing budgets but never about the business accumen and of course technical knowledge

Thanks for the write up, your an asset to this community mate - I enjoyed reading that

TRF is a great place, last few months i must have spent 2hrs a day on here (i know its sad) but bloody hell watches are all that interest me and where better to get that hit

[KBM]

Another history lesson from Peter. These posts are always a joy to come by. Thank you, my friend.