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Before his death in 1960, Hans Wilsdorf placed ownership of Rolex in the hands of the Wilsdorf Foundation, which would assure the company’s independence. In 1962, Rolex’s board appointed 41-year-old André Heiniger, who had worked for Wilsdorf for 12 years, as managing director. In 1992, Patrick Heiniger, a 32-year-old lawyer, who had served the company for six years as marketing director, succeeded his father. André stayed on as chairman until 1997, when he became chairman emeritus. In Rolex history, there have been only three managing directors.

In the post-war years, watches became both cheaper and more reliable. In 1950, a Norwegian born engineer, Joakim Lehmkuhl devised a more dependable inexpensive watch by making significant improvements to pin-lever technology. It was marketed under the brand name Timex. In 1968, prototype quartz crystal watches were introduced. These time pieces were extremely accurate and eventually would be inexpensive to produce. The new quartz technology allowed for both analog and digital readouts, and opened the door to new functions like calculators. By the end of the 1970s, about half of the watches sold worldwide were based on quartz technology, and Hong Kong had emerged as a major center for watch production.

Rolex was reluctant to join the quartz wave, but did come out with a limited number of models. In spite of threatening new technologies, a proliferation of low-cost producers in the Far East, and economic ups and downs, most of the luxury brands survived in one way or another. But Rolex thrived in the face of disruptive technologies. In an era when accuracy and dependability were no longer the exclusive province of premium products, Rolex developed a series of attitudes toward defending and building its position in the high-end market.

Even as watches became mass-produced commodities, Rolex continued to emphasize craftsmanship and quality. It used materials such as gold, platinum, and jewels. And it continually improved its movements and added new functions to its watches: the ability to tell the date, the day of the week, and the time in different time zones. As a result of this greater complexity, Rolex’s watches were made with a greater sense of old-fashioned craft. An inexpensive quartz watch produced with a great deal of automation has between 50 and 100 parts; a Rolex Oyster chronometer has 220 parts.

[tags]rolex, rolex watch, rolex history, continuity, hans wilsdorf[/tags]

Mechanical watches were relied on for navigation for the last two hundred years. However with the increased use of GPS and quartz marine watches, they are no longer a necessity. Just as the sextant and astrolabe were displaced as navigation tools by the mechanical watch now the simple watch is taking a backseat to other inventions. But their legacy lives on in the popularity of chronometer wrist watches. These old tools have not been relegated to the museum because they are still valued as a connection to a bygone era and as fashion accessories.

Making of marine watches is still big business, and most of the luxury watch making brands have set aside a significant budget to develop their marine lines.

Paradoxically, many of their wearers are unlikely to be found on yacht decks, let alone at sea. It is now more of an image than a necessity. The appeal is strong even in parts of the world where sailing and other marine sports have a relatively short history. Men like a rugged watch along the same lines that have them buying more powerful cars and bikes than are needed.

Professional divers mostly wear very modern quartz watches that are very reliable and waterproof. But they still own older mechanical watches like a Rolex for personal use. They are simply to valuable to wear at work.

Ulysse Nardin is a brand that illustrates the transition from working chronometer to luxury wrist watch. So famous were its deck clocks for their reliability that its M.Gr.F. marine chronometers were formerly used by all the major navies of the world. It was not until the company’s 150th anniversary, in 1996, that Ulysse Nardin produced its first marine chronometer wrist watch. They work hard to keep the wrist watch true to the deck clocks design. The company may have been late to take the plunge into the leisure market, but it aims to set future trends. They are introducing the first marine watch designed exclusively for women..

Current trends among marine-themed watches include large, luminous, black-faced watches; gold sandwiched between rubber; carbon fiber details; and, perhaps inevitably in the modern luxury world, diamonds around the dial.

The Rolex Submariner is the standard and still going strong but they are uniformly worn by the fashion conscious not the working diver. The watch is too expensive to risk scratching of getting water damage.

That sort of anxiety never, apparently, worried role-model macho watch-wearers of the past. Take, for example, James Bond: in the Ian Fleming novels, the Royal Navy commander and spy was referred to several times as wearing a “Rolex Oyster Perpetual on an expanding metal bracelet” as he went about his elegantly brutal business.

In the real world as opposed to the reel world a Rolex or other luxury brand owner would surely change his watch from day to night.

[tags]rolex, luxury, watch, wrist watch, diver, sailor, submariner[/tags]

The Rolex Oyster Perpetual Submariner is a line of watches manufactured by Rolex, made for underwater use such as diving the watch is water resistant. Created in the mid 1950’s The Submariner was the initial watch considered water resistant and each completes a high pressure test underwater. This is one watch from the very popular Rolex Oyster Perpetuals.

The watch has gone with explorers on sea and land to many extreme places. During a diving trip one stood up to over a thousand dives. The eminent scientist, Thor Heyerdal used a Submariner during his 1970 journey. The Submariner was the watch of choice for James Bond in his first nine movies.

The original Submariner was certified for depths of 330 feet but the watch was later upgraded and was more waterproof and the insides were improved. On the eve of The Submariner’s 50th birthday Rolex released a new design. It has a green bezel and large dial. The Submariner is waterproof to a maximum depth of 300 metres/1000 ft. If your watch has three dots on the crown then it is protected by the Triplock system of three gaskets it will then be able to tighten against the case tube as well as the Oyster case for a better seal. The case itself is made of 904L stainless, platinum or gold. 904L is an alloy that cuts the destructive effects of water. Rolex only uses gold that was created in their own foundry so that they can continue to find the best methods.

The Submariner utilizes a unidirectional bezel that enables the diver to calculate immersion time. Since the bezel only rotates counterclockwise the elapsed time can only become shorter in case of accidental bezel motion. There is a mechanism that spins inside the watch as you move through your day, this is the part that makes the watch Perpetual, it is turning and the movements are transferred to a spring where the energy is stored for those times that the watch is still, it can keep running up to three days. Each Rolex Submariner has a movement that is a certified Swiss chronometer. The Rolex calendar advances itself very simply each midnight. The Rolex Sea-Dweller,introduced in 1971,is a heavier-duty version of the Submariner in steel, with a thicker case and crystal. To this watch Rolex built in a helium escape valve for use in saturation diving. These watches are rated for dives as deep as 4000 feet.

[tags]rolex, submariner, watch, wristwatch, dive, dive watch, sea dweller[/tags]