Rolex

The story of Rolex begins in 1905 when Hans Wilsdorf, a 24-year-old German, founded a company in London specializing in the distribution of timepieces. He began to dream of a watch worn on the wrist that would be precise, elegant, and reliable.

At that time, wristwatches were not very precise, but Hans Wilsdorf foresaw that they could become not only elegant, but also reliable. To convince the public of the reliability of his watches, he equipped them with small, precise movements manufactured by a Swiss company in Bienne.

In 1910, a Rolex watch was the first wristwatch in the world to receive the Swiss Certificate of Chronometric Precision, granted by the Official Watch Rating Centre in Bienne. Four years later, in 1914, Kew Observatory in Great Britain awarded a Rolex wristwatch a class "A" precision certificate, a distinction which until that point in time had been reserved exclusively for marine chronometers.

The brand moved to Geneva in 1919, where it has remained ever since. Throughout the decades, Rolex has been at the forefront of watchmaking innovation, creating the first waterproof wristwatch (the Oyster in 1926), the first self-winding mechanism with a perpetual rotor (1931), and the first wristwatch to show the date on the dial (1945).