Rolex

Brand history

Founded by Hans Wilsdorf in London in 1905, registered as 'Rolex' in 1908, relocated to Geneva in 1919. Rolex's modern identity is built on three pillars: precision (the 1910 Bienne precision certificate and the 1914 Class A certificate from Kew Observatory — both predecessors of the modern COSC, which itself dates to 1973), reliability (Oyster case, 1926), and the in-house manufacturing capability that allows the brand to produce nearly every component itself. The Submariner, GMT-Master, Daytona, and Datejust are the most-collected sport-watch families of the 20th century; the modern product catalog is sub-1M units per year across all references.