Tiffany sub

[RolexUtopia]

Can anyone educate me on the tiffany history?

[SPACE-DWELLER]

Well, some Subs (but also other Rolex models) were "co-branded" with company names like "Tiffany" or "Cartier".

The REAL ones are very rare and sought-after, but there are SOOO many FAKE co-branded Sub and other Rolex watches out there that one should take great care to get the real thing.

"Comex" is another example of co-branding, btw. Also heavily faked.

I believe Mike will be able to give you a more detailed overview and maybe post some examplary pics.

[RolexUtopia]

Originally Posted by Spacedweller

Well, some Subs (but also other Rolex models) were "co-branded" with company names like "Tiffany" or "Cartier".

The REAL ones are very rare and sought-after, but there are SOOO many FAKE co-branded Sub and other Rolex watches out there that one should take great care to get the real thing.

"Comex" is another example of co-branding, btw. Also heavily faked.

Cheers Bo thanks for that

[Tools]

Here's what a vintage 5512 Tiffany Sub would look like.

Tiffany lost their AD status in the late 70's because they refused to stop branding their watches, a Tiffany trademark.

[mike]

Several retailers over the years have entered into agreements with Rolex to affix their names to Rolex references though the practice no longer exists.
Tiffany and Cartier were probably the two most widely known (along with Bucherer and Serpico y Laina).
In the early part of Rolex's history many European concerns did this.
The Tiffany and Cartier watches entered the states as plain references and had the additions done to the dials at RSC NY. I believe the Tiffanys and Cartiers first made their appearances in the early 60s and ran till the 80s when they lost their AD status.
These pieces turn up on occasion but the problem is verification. Most collectors will not touch a Tiffany example without paperwork from Tiffany. These are some of the most heavily faked speciality watches out there. Cartier was a bit different as they marked the watch on the lug with their brand.
During this time several references were "double-named" including the 1680, 1675, 1655, and others.

This one from Cartier recently traded at 85K at auction. Yes, the blue bezel is genuine have been sent by Rolex to affix to the watch,

[daunwaun]

Great info Guys

[Arturo]

I have a friend, Portland attorney, who is from Manhattan, and his parents got him a Tiffany Pepsi GMT for college graduation, and he won't send it in to RSC because he is scared they will mess with it and take away his faded bezel. I know that is paranoid, but he goes to an old watchmaker to get service and he has been happy with that. But he PRIZES his Tiffany watch.

[S2000 Driver]

Très Magnifique!

[Welshwatchman]

Philistine alert !

I really see no extra worth of the £5,000 or so premium for the rare Tiffany dial.

I see it as a bit of extra paint, big deal.

I guess that I am a bit if of a philistine when it comes to this type of thing.

I'm not going to comment about the Comex dial/engraving so as to not incriminate myself.

[citidon]

Did Tiffany and Cartier only sell Subs?

[SPACE-DWELLER]

Originally Posted by citidon

Did Tiffany and Cartier only sell Subs?

No, other Rolex models were co-branded, too.

On page 89 in the book "2421 Rolex-Uhren" by Kesaharu Imai, you see an Explorer II with "Tiffany & Co" dial, and on page 96 you see a Cosmograph Daytona ref. 6239, again with "Tiffany & Co" dial.

[mike]

Originally Posted by citidon

Did Tiffany and Cartier only sell Subs?

Most references carried the double name in the day. Here's a couple,

NOT MY PHOTOS

[CEG]

[/QUOTE]

STUNNING !!

[arttay10]

Very Interesting - thanks for posting the info .......

[freshacejay]

soooooooooo cool! Especially the tiffanys just cause it looks cool!

[Jerry B]

Bo, you have all of the answers. Why would Rolex, need or want to co-brand?

[cjj14u]

The blue bezel is awesome!!!

[Letsgodiving]

Tiffany on an SD just doesn't seem right.

[mike]

Originally Posted by Jerry B

Bo, you have all of the answers. Why would Rolex, need or want to co-brand?

The complete story, Credit James Dowling,

The reason that collectors now seek any Rolex watch with a retailer’s name on the dial is because Rolex no longer will print anyone's name on their dials. However the strange thing about this current mania is that in the early days the retailer’s name was the ONLY thing on the dial.

When Wilsdorf & Davis, the company that became Rolex, sold their first watches they were delivered to the shops with blank dials. It was up to the retailer to put their own name on the dial. Many of these watches had porcelain dials and when they were printed with the store’s name it obviously had to be printed on top of the enamel. This meant that any subsequent cleaning of the dial would result in the name immediately coming off. Which is why so many of the enamel dials we find nowadays are completely blank; although many have been recently repainted with the "Rolex" name.

These early watches come from the period between 1905 (when Rolex was founded) and 1919 (when they moved their head office from London to Geneva). During this period the vast majority of their watches were sold in Britain and to a lesser extent in the far flung colonies of the British Empire. Rolex were still a very young company whilst most of the stores had been in business for a long time; so people would have more faith in a watch with the name of "The Goldsmiths Company" or "Asprey" on the dial than in an unheard of company such as Rolex; although (of course) the movements and cases were signed Rolex.

The silver tonneau watch shown here bears the (indistinct) name of Asprey, then as now, one of London’s most famous jewellers and still a Rolex retailer whilst the enamel dial one has the name "Goldsmiths" who were, as the advertisement above shows, the first Rolex retailer in the world.

After Hans Wilsdorf moved himself and the company to Geneva he slowly but surely began to promote the company through various publicity events, such as obtaining the world’s first chronometer certificates for some of his wristwatches. He soon realised that all the efforts he was putting into this promotion would be wasted if no one was able to buy watches by name "Rolex". Initially he began to apply labels to the back of the watches, but this was not enough. So from 1921 he began to ship watches with Rolex printed on the dial; at this time watches came from the factory in small shipping boxes each containing 6 watches without straps. Initially only one watch in each box would have the name on the dial, then a year later on two of them would and then slowly he increased the number of signed watches in each box until by 1925, 5 out of 6 were so named. It was with the launch of the Rolex Oyster in 1926 that Wilsdorf was able to insist that ALL Oysters should have the company’s name on the dial. The dial signature came in 2 versions, as a small curved version around the seconds dial, thereby allowing space for a retailer to also sign the dial or as a 2 line version below the 12, leaving no such room.

It is interesting to note that in 1945 Wilsdorf wrote that part of the reason for choosing the name "Rolex" was that it was "...a short yet significant word, not cumbersome on the dial (thus leaving room enough for the inscription of the English trader’s name)..."; in other words it was chosen because it would leave plenty of room on the dial for the retailer to sign the dial as well.

The first known watches to have the company’s name printed on the dial were sold around 1920 to an Australian retailer called "Dunklings"; these dials are unusual in that the name of both the manufacturer and the retailer are next to each other and have equal prominence. To the best of my knowledge these dials are the only ones signed in such a way.

The names of certain retailers on dials have an interesting side effect; it is possible, through examination of these dials, to examine the rate at which Rolex moved from having a few dealers in Britain to being the world wide organisation we know today. The very first dials have the names of British retailers, such as Mappin & Webb, Owen & Robinson or West's of Dublin then we see the names of retailers throughout the British Empire. Jewellers in India, Burma, South Africa and Australia are amongst the dials shown here. Then as Rolex became more well-known, in the 1930s, many prominent stores in Switzerland began to sell the watches (although mostly to tourists); Gubelin, Beyer and Bucherer are some of the names most often seen during this period. Towards the end of the 1930s and into the early 1940s as Europe descended into war Rolex were forced to seek newer fields to conquer and so moved into South America; and from this moment on we see names such as Serpico y Laina on watches. From the late 1940s as Europe began to rise from the ashes of the Second World War; European dealer’s names begin to turn up again on the dials; Astura of Milan, Janus of Copenhagen and Türler of Geneva were some of them. However by the 1960s Europe had ceased to be the major market for Rolex and apart from the few select dealers in Switzerland there were no more European retailer’s names on the dial. There were still two companies whose international prestige was such that even Rolex felt they could not refuse their requests; these two, Cartier and Tiffany were the final store names ever to be seen on a Rolex dial. Even these high profile dealers ceased to be Rolex agents about 8 years ago. The high prices now obtained for any Rolex with either of these two names on a dial is due not only to the fact that these were the last 2 companies ever to have their names on a Rolex dial but also to the tradition and heritage that these two names signify.

Whilst the discussion above has centred on retailers whose name appeared on Rolex watch dials; there were, of course, many other companies whose names also are sometimes seen. These can be broken into 2 groups, presentation watches and co-branded watches. Presentation watches are the easiest to talk about, they are watches given by companies to employees who have worked for a significant length of time or who have performed an outstanding achievement for the company. Please see this 1960s Rolex USA advertisement, for more details. Note that the advertisement offers dial printing with the donor's corporate logo. This, of course, was a service Rolex only offered to companies large enough to order the many watches needed to amortise the cost of a special dial plate. In this first group are the famous "¼ Century Club" Rolex Princes awarded to members of staff of the famed Canadian Department store T. Eaton Company Limited who had completed 25 years of continuous service. The company started the club in 1919, when it was itself 50 years old; at which time around 60 members of staff qualified. Obviously these first members of the club did not get a Rolex Prince; they received a gold pocket watch of unknown make. Starting around 1928, the Prince was introduced for those who wanted the more modern look of a wristwatch. By 1944, when the club itself was 25 years old there were now more than 4,200 members; but by now a number of them were ladies and of course they would not want a Rolex Prince; so for them a specially engraved diamond ring or a smaller size watch was offered. The ring or watch was not the only benefit given to those who qualified; on their special day they received gifts from their department and an additional six weeks vacation above their normal allocation. Nowadays all of this is just history, but the watches remain and these watches are extremely unusual in that the dial does not bear the name "Rolex", in its place is the word "Eaton"; the numerals 1 to 12 are replaced with "¼ Century Club". The very first watches given were "small flared" model 1490 in one colour 14k gold, always yellow, during a very short period in the mid 1930s Eaton also gave out a small number of two colour flared Princes (so far less than a dozen have been seen). These two colour watches were the normal configuration; that is yellow gold centre and white gold flares; only last year, though, one unique "¼ Century Club" watch has turned up which has the reversed configuration; that is white gold centre and yellow gold flares. This watch was given out in 1934 but is also unusual in that it is a "large flare" model, which had never been previously seen on a "¼ Century Club" model before. The whole thing is even more unusual when we look at the model number and see it to be a 1343, this of course, is the model number for a straight sided Prince; however the number is followed by the letter "A", which, as we all have learned, means a factory variation. All in all, a very unusual watch.

These "small flared" 1490 watches seem all to have been bought at one time, because although Rolex stopped making them in 1942 yet "¼ Century Club" watches with dates as late as 1949 do turn up quite regularly. They were eventually superseded by the "scrolled lug"; version, model 3937, which although introduced by Rolex in 1944 does not appear as a "¼ Century Club" watch until 1949 and then continued until about 1965. These were the last Princes used as "¼ Century Club" presentation watches and were given out to employees about 15 years after the last Prince was manufactured (and probably almost 20 years after the watches themselves were made). They were followed by simple round 14k sweep seconds "Bombé" Oyster Perpetual watches, model 6092, once again with a unique dial with the "¼ Century Club" instead of regular numerals. These watches were bought as one large batch once more, because we see these watches being presented as late as 1973, when of course they were made in the late 1950s. The other large corporation with enough "clout" and enough employees was Coca Cola and throughout the 1960s and 1970s we see many model 6085 14k & 18k watches with Coca Cola both on the dial and on the case back (see page 213 in our book for an example). With these watches, unlike the Eaton ones, there is no inscription giving the dates of service, which of course would help in dating the watches. Close examination of the dials on these shows that the Coca Cola was printed at the same time as the rest of the dial, unlike the next watch dial we shall study. These are Air King perpetuals in steel, model 5500, "Air King" given by Domino's Pizza to delivery personnel or managers who were chosen as "Employee of the year". With these watches the dial logo was printed on the whole batch by the retailer before being delivered to Domino's; the interesting fact about them is that these are by far the most colourful of all designs seen on a Rolex dial. These watches have never been as collectible as the watches mentioned earlier for two reasons; firstly because the Air King itself has never been as desirable as all other Rolex watches (being the cheapest Rolex Perpetual) and also because the very name of Domino's itself is also considered to be "down-market".

We now come to a lesser known area of "Double Name" collecting; these are "co-branded" watches. That is watches with the name of a company on the dial other than a store. These can be broken into two groups; firstly companies who were distributors or importers of Rolex and secondly companies with whom Rolex have a contractual relationship. The first group is made up of two companies who were consecutively the first two importers and distributors of Rolex Watches in the United States. These companies, Abercrombie & Fitch and Zell Brothers, sold Rolex between 1926 and 1930 and 1932 and 1940 respectively. Amazingly (to us nowadays) neither of these companies succeeded in making Rolex a household name. The reason behind their failure is an interesting one and is worth studying. During the period these watches were made 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, 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, Hans Wilsdorf and the Gruen brothers, Frederick G Gruen and George J. Gruen. Aegler manufactured movements for both companies who then sold the completed watches in their respective territories; Wilsdorf, throughout Europe, Asia and the British Empire; whilst the Gruen brothers sold in the US only. This arrangement worked well until Rolex invented 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, of course). So Rolex took a sideways move and fitted their new Oyster case with a movement from FHF (Fontmelon) and then tried to find a US distributor. They came across the firm of Abercrombie and Fitch, then a store specialising in sportsman's' equipment; whether you wanted to go elephant shooting in Africa or fly fishing in Scotland, Abercrombie and Fitch was the place you went for all your equipment. Everything from mosquito nets to double barrelled shotguns could be found under their roof. As the sportsman's store they seemed the ideal place to sell the first oysters, 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 down-market version of their watch in a high end store and also because Abercrombie & Fitch did not advertise the watch sufficiently. These Abercrombie & Fitch watches are probably the rarest of all the cushion oysters, in all my dealings I have only ever seen two; they were both signed "Abercrombie & Fitch Seafarer" on the dial and the cases and movements were both signed "Oyster Watch Company". Both cases were badly corroded as they were made from "Snowite", a chromed zinc material that did not last very long; neither, for that matter did the relationship between Rolex and Abercrombie & Fitch. A&F went on to become the USA distributor for Heuer chronographs, probably more of a sportsman's watch.

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 North West of the USA, headquartered in Seattle. Zell had seen the success of Rolex in Canada and in Vancouver in particular (Seattle and Vancouver are only about 150km apart). They asked to be made the importer for Rolex in the Pacific North West and Rolex 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 "Turtle Timer" instead (please note the word ROLEX has been applied to this dial much later). 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 A&F had been but can hardly be described as having made a major market breakthrough. I have seen around 5 or 6 of their watches and because they were made when Rolex was using real stainless steel the cases have lasted much better than the A&F ones ever did. But Zells 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 name and not Oyster meant that Rolex would never reap the benefit of any success.

All these problems were solved and Rolex gained the right to enter the US market themselves when the Gruen brothers left the board of Aegler in mid 1936 selling their shares to the two remaining parties; their place on the board of the company was taken by Emil Borer who was Herman Aegler's brother in law, the technical director of Rolex and much more significantly the man who invented the Perpetual movement for the company. This new movement was the first one from Aegler 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 World War 2, in 1942.

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. This was the result of experiments carried out with early 5513 (non date) 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 Sea Dweller. The largest 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 have become incredibly collectible because they are now the ONLY Rolex watch still being produced with another name on the dial.
It is somewhat ironic that after 90 years of retailers' names on Rolex dials the only one left is a company who do not sell watches.

[yachtsales]

Originally Posted by Letsgodiving

Tiffany on an SD just doesn't seem right.

I was kinda thinking the same thing!

[Davvan]

And Datejusts

[Scarface]

Originally Posted by mike

The complete story, Credit James Dowling

Thank you, very interesting

[Trurolexer]

Originally Posted by Letsgodiving

Tiffany on an SD just doesn't seem right.

X2!!!

[Bobareno]

Back in 1982 I saw a GMT Pepsi in a Tiffany catalog. The price was the same as the AD. Only it had their logo on the face. Wish I would have got it now.

[ttannert]

This was great info!

[Monkeyman]

That was well worth the read, Thanks!! i want a job with COmex

[timackerman]

Wow Mike, thanks for the info. Very interesting

[TempoKing]

Originally Posted by Arturo

I have a friend, Portland attorney, who is from Manhattan, and his parents got him a Tiffany Pepsi GMT for college graduation, and he won't send it in to RSC because he is scared they will mess with it and take away his faded bezel. I know that is paranoid, but he goes to an old watchmaker to get service and he has been happy with that. But he PRIZES his Tiffany watch.

Actually Rolex in New York will not "mess" with his watch, I send mine there and they refused to service it..lol..my army buddy in Europe who works for Rolex serviced the watch..!...so if there is will there is a way..

[daveathall]

Great info, thank you.