About Rolex

Hans Wilsdorf and his brother-in-law, Alfred Davis, founded Wilsdorf and Davis, the company that would eventually become Rolex SA, in London, England in 1905. In 1908, Wilsdorf registered the trademark `Rolex` and opened an office in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. Rolex moved its base of operations to Geneva, Switzerland in 1919. The first self-winding Rolex wristwatch was offered to the public in 1931 (so-called the bubble back due to the large case back), preceded to the market by Harwood which patented the design in 1923 and produced the first self-winding watch in 1928, powered by an internal mechanism that used the movement of the wearer`s arm. This not only made watch-winding unnecessary but kept the power from the mainspring more consistent resulting in more reliable time keeping. Rolex was the first watch company to create a water-resistant wristwatch that could withstand pressure to a depth of 100 m (330 ft).