Perhaps the armed guards on the door lent an air of confidence. This is a community. A designer by profession, Bulang was a latecomer to the Rolex Illuminati.
War correspondence! How the Russian tsars got their Champagne through secret channels! Within days he went back and bought his first Rolex, a small crown James Bond. I think I bought another Rolex once or twice a week from then. I went frantic. It sells watches, own-brand high-end watch straps, watch-related style and curated packages of Rolex-adjacent goods, like a bike designed to complement the legendary Red Submariner. Something special happened in that period, something was perfected, and they are still relevant today.
And what exactly is that? What makes Rolex so singular among watch brands? But really it should be a sense of achievement for yourself. You can wear a Newman anywhere and nobody would know what it means — except you. There are the totemic associations, of course — the graduation, wedding or promotion gifts — and the stories unique to each watch. But for Bernhard Bulang the attraction is simple. They get the biggest respect from me for keeping their own course.
But there was never a watch lost". In the s, Bernhard and Philipp Stahl co-organised the Rolex Passion Meetings, the precursors to Rolliefest, as a way to bring online forum obsessives together. The first was in a little chateau near his place in the southern Netherlands. He remembers taking the Rolex collectors into Maastricht for a Friday night, and the bread bucket on the table of a packed bar was filled with MilSubs. Rolex is a religion. There are more costly watches.
There are rarer watches. There are watches with finer complications and more intricate movements and more esoteric brand positioning. For the price point there is nothing like them. It is also meaning. Rolex means manhood, means role models. It has no tourbillons, perpetual calendars or minute repeaters — not even movements with a large date display, power reserve indicator or alarm function. The company concentrates on what it does best, and improves the detail ongoing.
This is true for the movements as well as for the case. The significance of the Rolex name is linked to the fact that the brand introduced innovative features quite early on which have made the watch well-suited for everyday wear.
In Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf submitted a wristwatch movement to the renowned Kew-Teddington observatory for chronometer certification. Today the chronometer test currently conducted by the Swiss institute COSC has become a standard for in-house mechanical Rolex calibers.
The Datejust, introduced in , was the first watch to combine all three features — automatic winding, water-resistant case and chronometer certificate. Together with its namesake date window, it has all the essentials. The everyday wearability of a watch is a function of its design.
The round shape of a Rolex contributes to its water-resistance and its superior legibility. Add to this a central sweep seconds hand and Cyclops date magnifier another Hans Wilsdorf invention. Existing collections are maintained and continuously improved over the years.
There are no sudden design shifts or leaps, and even case sizes are altered only very gradually. Watch expert Gisbert L. Submariner watches are placed in large tubes that are filled with water to ensure that they are water resistant to meters. The test is extremely complex because Rolex employs a complex system for testing if water entered the case. After the watches exit the tank, they are heated up and a drop of cold water is placed on the crystal to see if condensation forms.
An optical sensor then scans them for trace amounts of water. Less than one in a thousand watches fail the test. The story is much more intense for Deep-Sea watches. The pressure tank looks like something from a science fiction movie.
Imagine something that looks like a several ton Gatling gun. This machine takes well over an hour and measures each watch to a pressure equivalent to 12, meters deep. It has been said that Rolex has preposterous standards for the materials it buys from its suppliers.
This includes things like metals as well as precious stones such as diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. Rolex has a massive gemological department whose goal it is to buy, test, arrange, and set diamonds and other precious stones in a range of Rolex models.
One of the things they do is check incoming stones to ensure that they are real. Using x-rays for example, they can test diamonds to ensure they aren't fake. Rolex reports that in the years they have been testing diamonds, only two in 20 million have been fake. That might seem like such a small amount it isn't even worth their time to perform the test. Nevertheless, to ensure absolute quality, Rolex tests each batch of diamonds.
This should also have an illustrative effect on the diamonds they use, which happen to only be IF in clarity, and D-G in color the four grades closest to white. Each and every diamond or precious stone no matter how large or small on a Rolex watch is hand-selected and hand-set.
Rolex employs traditional jewelers to create custom settings for stones in their most exclusive watches, done using the same processes employed in creating the world's finest jewelry. It was amazing to see this level of artisanship and delicate care inside what many people believe to be a mass producer. If you look at Rolex watches over time, they are more about evolution rather than revolution. This idea of always improving versus changing goes right into their manufacturing process as well.
They are constantly learning how to improve quality through better processes and techniques. The move from aluminum to ceramic bezel inserts is a perfect example. Nevertheless, from starting to shape the parts of the case to testing a completed watch for accuracy, the process takes around one year. Of course Rolex could speed this up for certain models if necessary, but each watch requires so many parts and virtually everything is made from base materials in-house.
Once all the parts for a Rolex watch are completed, they are then mostly hand-assembled and individually tested. The testing and quality assurance process is rather intense. A good example is how Rolex makes each of their watch dials. All of the dial are made in-house, and one of the most impressive facts is that all of the applied hour markers are set individually by hand. Often times at other brands, machines perform this process, but Rolex learned that a human eye is better trained to spot problems.
So individual hour markers are applied and riveted by hand. Dials are dropped from 20cm up in the air to ensure that none of the hour markers fall out. This is a careful and time consuming process, and it is among the many elements of making watches at Rolex that is done by a skilled human being.
Taken together, because of Rolex's rather fanatical dedication to quality across their huge production, watches take on average, about a year to produce. After having said all of the above it probably doesn't come as a big surprise that Rolex makes virtually everything in-house as a totally vertically integrated manufacturer. As of right now the only major parts that Rolex doesn't make for all of their watches are the synthetic sapphire crystals and many of the dial hands though I have a feeling the latter will change in the next several years.
The everyday wearability of a watch is a function of its design. The round shape of a Rolex contributes to its water-resistance and its superior legibility. Add to this a central sweep seconds hand and Cyclops date magnifier another Hans Wilsdorf invention.
Existing collections are maintained and continuously improved over the years. Watch expert Gisbert L. The moment you buy a car, it drops in value by half. This fact is true to a lesser extent for watches — except for Rolex. This is an attractive point for any customer — regardless of whether they are buying the watch for this particular reason or any other. The price stability of used but still relatively new watches depends in great part on the high prices achieved regularly by older Rolex watches at auction.
After Patek Philippe, Rolex is the next hottest brand. There are thousands of examples of auctioning success with Rolex watches over the last several decades. In some cases the prices have reached dizzying heights. This beat the previous record for the most expensive Rolex wristwatch ever sold, a Ref. The pinnacle of desirability is achieved when the thing one wants is not available. The famous Daytona in steel is for many such an object of desire, ever since an early version appeared on the wrist of Hollywood star Paul Newman.
Rolex brings approximately as many models into stores as it expects to sell. The result is long waiting lists. Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf was a marketing genius.
He chose a name that was easy to pronounce in many different languages and made sure this name was printed on the dial — not entirely common at a time when customer loyalty was to the dealer, not the manufacturer. The story landed him a full-page advertisement on the front page of the Daily Mail. There were also ads in magazines in which a young actress submerged her hand and wrist and watch!
Rolex marketing approaches have a more subtle touch. Beginning in the late s, it emphasizes its presence in prestigious sports such as tennis and golf, automobile racing, equestrian sports and sailing. Open since , and for Formula One since , clearly showing that Rolex represents sports and success. Rolex always makes a solid and composed impression. The company stays true to its proven methods and chooses to make continuous improvements instead of pursuing the new and different.
The company does not produce complicated watches such as tourbillons or repeaters, only very rarely launches new collections, and stays away from online sales. This makes the brand predictable for the customer and also protects the brand from missteps. The company does not make a big deal when introducing new products at Baselworld each spring.
While other manufacturers boldly announce world records, hold press conferences featuring celebrities, or present 70 brand-new products, Rolex quietly works on detailed improvements.
Larger cases, improved movements, ceramic bezels and now and again a new color — even innovations such as these are discussed among Rolex fans hotly and not without controversy. His analysis and history is absolutely correct.!!!! I left for my first tour in Vietnam with my Rolex on my wrist. Omega was the big deal as Neil Armstrong was on his way to the moon with an Omega watch. I gave him a lecture on Swiss watches and Rolex in particular.
Next thing you know , Captains and Commanders , in our unit, all my bosses were wearing Rolex watches!!!! I felt as I started a trend!
Moving forward to while doing a repair on my car , I removed my Rolex from My wrist and lost it! I was 53 and cried like a child for having lost my Rolex. I never bought another Rolex as I felt it would bring me bad luck and be a bad omen. I own and wear great watches ,Breguet , Ulysses Nardin, Sinn, Longines, and today at the tender age of 26 with 50 years of life experience, I am dreaming and planning on a Patek-Philip!
Rolex is the top quality for the money! I purchased two Rolex watches, and They have been dependable and stylish for all these years. Thank you Rolex….. I know this to be true; I tried to purchase a new 39, 41mm Perpetual Including a Milgauss or a Date Just for almost a year without success. Good article. Another point not mentioned is that Rolex is a private company, owned by a trust. As such it can aim for the very long run without the pressure of annual financial statements.
A good example of this is how Rolex supported its dealers during the shutdown. BTW, that was a great time to buy a Rolex. You had to put the money up front, but the choice was there. I personally think that Rolex is wise not to sell online. The problem with online is that everything becomes commodified. However, Rolex is at the perverbial cross road in its business practices today.
As much as I love my new 41mm Datejust in stainless steel, I am realizing the bang for the buck is not what it used to be. A new Omega Seamaster Aqua Terra offers much need competition to Rolex at half the price with the same performance as the new automatic movement powering most of the Rolex line. Next time I may not double my cost simply for the name. Rolex needs to decide where they want to be in the market place.
Either extremely high end or the best of both worlds which it seems to occupy now…. When the common man can no longer afford a Rolex and the supporting base evaporates Rolex could find itself in trouble. It sometimes appears they are purposely steering the train in that direction. Ranked by watch aficionados Rolex is a top 10 brand, but usually at the end, 8, 9 or But to the watch industry Rolex is the most important brand in the world.
My submariner is 40 years old….
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