Originally Posted by padi56
(Post 13333060)
Very sorry for the repost but reading the Rolex watch forum lately which is now mainly about ££$$ if I buy this or that will it go up in value. Worrying and fretting about a few seconds out of 86400 in a day. The history of the Rolex brand is a gone and forgotten subject and what this forum was started for, so this post might help some of the newer members what the forum was originally about. Now if this post offends some that are only interested in value this or that, fretting over a few seconds or minor scratches, or making up new silly nicknames, then I apologise whole heartily for the long read which I know is hard for some to do today.
RWC The Early Years And for those who do not know what RWC is its the Rolex Watch Company now called Rolex started in the UK around 1905, but moved to Switzerland around 1919 Swiss ever since.
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 1942/3.
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 but this might now have changed.
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