If one is asked to tell three brand names of high-end watches, Rolex may probably be the first name that one can immediately tell. Indeed, Rolex has built the impressive image as being a luxury watch brand worldwide.
So here my first post begins with Rolex. After reading the post, the name Rolex may not just mean a mere “luxury watch” to you. You may know more about the giant watchmaker, why it is so famed and have more ideas of why you should buy or wear a Rolex watch, or just a Rolex replica.
How a giant watchmaker was born
The history of Rolex is quite different from the other century-old watch makers who produced their own watches from the very beginning. Rolex began their business from assembling watches.
In 1905, Rolex founders, German watchmaker Hans Wilsdorf and his brother-in-law Alfred Davis found the company “Wilsdorf and Davis” in London. Their business was very simple: they just imported movements from Switzerland and installed them in watch cases made by another company, then sold to jewelers, who then put their own names on the dial. They only stamped “W&D” inside the caseback for their earliest watches.
The changes in name and base
W&D gained their first success for its leading wrist watch. In 1915 the company decided to use a more resounding name Rolex to replace the name “W&D”.
In 1919 Wilsdorf moved the company to Geneva, Switzerland because taxes and export duties on the silver and gold used for the watch cases in UK were too high.
In Geneva, the new company was called the Rolex Watch Company. Its name was later changed to Montres Rolex, SA and finally Rolex, SA.
The name Rolex
The name “Rolex” was just made up because it was easy to spell, easy to pronounce and short enough to fit on the face of a watch. Pretty surprised huh? You may think there is some meaning in the name Rolex, but actually there wasn’t any.
In fact, if you review some of the greatest brand names in the world, such as Benz, Kodak, Nike, and the hottest Google, you will find that they don’t indicate what their products are, but they finally become the synonym of the real product. Whenever the name Benz is referred, you will think of the auto.
I think the easy-to-remember name of Rolex definitely has played an important part in making the watch brand so polular in the world. For example, you may know that Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin are even more precious watches than Rolex, but you may not know how to pronounce it, and thus less people will know this information from you because they may less likely to remember what you say if you mumble the name.