Rolex Reopens in Switzerland!

WELCOME BACK!!!

Rolex Reopens in Switzerland

Rolex is one of the most beloved and trusted brands on earth, so when they decided to shut down all their production facilities in Switzerland it felt very akward. Our Captain Danny reported on our Twitter @RolexMagazine that for the first time since March, Rolex has reopened its facilities in Switzerland. For the first week back teams are working half days, with a 30-minute gap in between shifts to avoid contact. Also, face masks are required and provided by the company as they are not allowing outside masks.

In the United States, the Dallas Rolex service center has reopened as well this week. “Rolex Dallas is open as of [Monday] with a very limited capacity per our local state guidelines,” an email to customers read. 

“Please understand there will be delays in processing received packages and completing estimates and/or repairs until we are able to operate a full capacity. We anticipate turnaround times to be up to six weeks.”

If you are interested in learning much more about the Rolex WonkaWorks in Switzerland be sure to checkout my story named, "Inside ROLEX: Exploring What Makes Rolex Tick."

I wrote my Inside Rolex story back in 2013 after I was invited by Rolex along with Ben Clymer, James Dowling and Ariel Adams (all pictured below) to become the first journalist to tour all four Rolex manufacturing facilities in Switzerland.

Benjamin Clymer, James Dowling, Ariel Adams, and Jake Ehrlich on November 19, 2013

(Hodinkee.com, Timezone.com, ABlogToWatch.com, and RolexMagazine.com)
Below are some photos of the different Rolex vertically integrated facilities in Switzerland that make Rolex watches. To all Rolex employees in Switzerland, my team wishes you nothing but the best as your safely return!!!

Serious Quality Control

Rolex does super-heavy-duty extreme testing on 100% of all watches they make, to ensure they are perfect in every way. Rolex basically takes a belt-and-suspenders approach to testing, which adds layers of redundancy, since they are so fanatical about ensuring absolute perfection. 

The machines below show a specially developed Rolex machine that is testing huge boxes of assembled Rolex watch cases with their movements installed. This complex machine tests each watch in multiple positions to simulate real-world-use case-scenarios. If you look closely, you will notice the three robotic machines below can each hold and test 1000 watches each.

False Steve McQueen Association from Antiquorum Auction House

False Steve McQueen Association from

 Antiquorum Auction House

An Open Letter from Jake 

A dozen years ago, when I started Jake's Rolex World there were a number of falsely perpetuated Rolex rumors—many of which were based upon false association. I even wrote a story named "The Complete History of Rolex Mythbusting: Separating Rolex Fact from Fiction."

One of those rumors referred to "The Steve McQueen Explorer", so of course I went looking for evidence that Steve McQueen wore a Rolex Explorer. I came up empty handed because I discovered this false association was a myth perpetuated by people who wanted to try and capitalize on the Paul Newman Daytona. Today I discovered that Antiquorum published an error in their most recent catalog which continues this false 'Steve McQueen' association with the Rolex Explorer (Reference 1655) which as a public service I am bringing to their attention so they may retract & correct their irresponsible error. Basically, so long as any entity puts forth this FAKE NEWS / false association I will continue to correct them.

Why am I doing this? For two reasons. People or entities—especially auction houses—who put themselves forth as being 'experts' on Rolex watches should be aware of the REAL HISTORY of Rolex, and should NOT be publishing false narratives which deceive and confuse the public.

Secondly, as the world's leading Rolex historian, I am 1000% certain that Rolex history is so amazing on its own and requires ZERO exaggeration.

I will go so far to say that ANYBODY who puts forth this FAKE NEWS / false Steve McQueen association narrative is a complete IDIOT and does not know what they are talking about and, thus are NOT trustworthy.

Just to be crystal-clear, as witnessed in the photo below, Steve McQueen owned and wore a number of Rolex Submariner models and NEVER wore a Rolex Explorer. I confirmed this fact when I interviewed his ex-wifes as well as his son. I defy anybody on planet earth to prove otherwise!?!!