Rolex – The Ultimate Reference for Replicas
31 July 2011
The universally recognized Rolex watch-making manufacture cultivates its image as a monolithic company that has always enjoyed success. Yet this success owes nothing to chance. It is the result of a global strategy and can be explained by an analysis of this firm’s history, which began in 1905 and entered its legend building phase from 1908, when the Rolex brand name was registered by its founder, Hans Wilsdorf.
We actually know little about this man of Bavarian extraction, but he was undeniably a visionary. His ambition was to establish the brand and its watch-making creations in the marketplace by differentiation them from competitor brands and products. Rapidly, he decided to focus almost exclusively on wristwatches. To encourage the public to opt for this kind of timepiece still uncommon in the first decades of the twentieth century – he not only worked on enhancing the production quality of his watches to demonstrate their superiority, but also made marketing an absolute priority, publicizing the advantages of his products.
Rolex was not the only watch-making firm trying to solve a number of major problems such as water resistance. However, Hans Wilsdorf was alone in realizing just how important it was for technical watch-making solutions to remain simple, enabling them to be patented and sustainably applied. He had the opportunity to put this approach into practice when he became convinced that screwing the winder crown into a tube would provide the perfect solution to the water-resistance problem. In 1936, he registered this first major invention, which would bring the crown brand to the notice of the general public. The Swiss Rolex legend could now begin.
However, it is now a turbulent time for Rolex as a watch making company. An industry has spewed creating all sorts of problems for the Rolex company. Watch manufacturer overseas have begun to use Rolex as a standard for creating replica watches. These manufacture spend years dissecting an original watch, even using 3D model machines in complicated setups to replicate the Rolex standard. The creation and selling of rolex replicas is a major industry in third world countries such as China.