3 things to know before buying a Rolex

Being the best known and most popular luxury watch brand in the world, Rolex watches have little trouble selling themselves. There is a reason as to why it is one of the biggest and best brands in the world, but before you buy yours, there are a couple of things that you should know … 

Rolex’s best inventions are copied 

When you think of the mighty Rolex, you think of the numerous different inventions the brand brought to watchmaking. The water-resistant watch, for example, in 1926. The automatic, self- winding movement in 1931. The first self-changing date in 1945. Every single one of those developments changed watchmaking forever—and not just in the hyperbolic, sensationalist marketing sense, they forced other brands, much bigger brands, to change the way they operated.

Most Rolex parts are not in-house

Rolex came to the watchmaking game pretty late in life. By the time founder Hans Wilsdorf got into it 1905, Omega had already got a 57-year head start, Patek Philippe 66 years. There was no chance for 24-year-old Hans Wilsdorf, with no watchmaking training whatsoever, to start making watches that would come anywhere close to competing all by himself. He needed help. He needed someone to make his watches for him. That’s fine; plenty of watchmakers get their start by outsourcing construction or buying in catalogue parts. Rolex, however, didn’t get around to bringing construction fully in-house until 2004. For 99 years, most of the company’s existence, its parts have not been made in-house. A few components, like the hands, still aren’t.

The practicality of his wristwatches made them a necessity during the Great War, and so Wilsdorf upscaled the output of his manufacturers and continued to work on and develop his watches, identifying more opportunities to put Rolex on the front page of every newspaper in the world. Because that’s what Wilsdorf was, a businessman, a marketing man. Not a watchmaker. He had an uncanny sense for knowing what the public wanted and how best to deliver it, not how to put a watch together. But there was one nagging doubt in Wilsdorf’s mind about the use of outsourcing, and that was quality. With outsourcing, the brand was vulnerable to anything from inconsistencies to outright defects, and with a reputation for tool-like precision, it was something Rolex could do without. So, one by one, the brand absorbed its suppliers, bought them outright. Piece by piece, Rolex inched towards autonomy and independence, finally purchasing the family business that had so faithfully manufactured its movements, Aegler, in 2004. 

Rolex isn’t Swiss 

If you’re buying Rolex, you’re buying into the idea of proper Swiss watchmaking, straight from the foothills of the Jura mountains, assembled by wizened Swiss watchmakers. Here’s some news for you: Rolex isn’t Swiss. Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf isn’t Swiss, the brand wasn’t founded in Switzerland, and the first watches weren’t made in Switzerland either. 

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