Friday, July 27, 2007

Part 2: The Complete History Of The Rolex Submariner & SEA-DWELLER




The Complete History Of
The Rolex Submariner & SEA-DWELLER
Rolex's Conquest Of The Ocean
CHAPTER 2


The Perpetual Oyster & The Mermaid 

In a span of 5 years from 1926 to 1931 Rolex and Hans Wilsdorf would create and patent two major horology milestones that would forever set Rolex apart–the Rolex Oyster waterproof watch-case and the Rolex Perpetual Movement. In 1925, Rolex would also create and register their famous trademark logo of the Rolex crown.

The Art-Deco era was a time of tremendous growth for Rolex, so much so there are many art-deco elements which remain as part of their current design language.

The Rolex Oyster is perhaps the most revolutionary and profound development in watch history. The following patent application was filed by Hans Wilsdorf on behalf of Rolex in 1926:

The next photo below is of the actual first Rolex Oyster made in 1926, which was made out of yellow gold. This art-deco masterpiece wrist watch changed everything. Was it the first professional dive watch in history? In many ways yes and in many way no, as we will soon see. More than anything it was watch you could take swimming without damaging.


What Exactly Is A Rolex Oyster?

So what makes a Rolex Oyster an Oyster? The winding crown acts like a screw-on cap or mini jar lid and has watertight gaskets in it. The best way to think of it is to imagine a submarine hatch that is threaded and has to be twisted or spun open or closed.




How A Rolex Oyster Works

I want illustrate exactly how a Rolex Oyster keeps out all elements including water and thus protects the movement. The next set of 5 images were taken by the ultra-passionate Rolex collector, Stefano Mazzariol of his yellow gold Rolex Submariner [Reference 1680]. In this this first image, we see the watch sitting on its side with the winding crown screwed down.

This next image shows the winding crown up-close in the screwed-down position. Once again, think of a threaded submarine-hatch that is closed or a jar lid that is screwed shut.
In this next image (below) we see the Rolex Oyster Crown unscrewed, meaning it was unscrewed by spinning it counter-clockwise. Notice the exposed threads on the bottom of the winding tube. You can't see it in this photo, but the Rolex winding crown has matching threads inside the crown itself like a jar lid.

The winding crown itself has a stem attached to it that goes through the tube which allows you to wind the watch or change the hours or minutes–depending on how far out the winding crown is positioned or pulled.
In this last image in this set (pictured below) we see the same vintage yellow gold Rolex Submariner as in the photos above, but the Oyster bracelet has been removed and the screw-down case-back has been removed as well. Once again, in this photo, you can't see the the threads on the case-back but it has threads and the case-back screws into the case very similarly to a jar lid or submarine hatch.

The crown and case-back, when removed allow complete access to the movement, but when they are in place and screwed-down, they make the watch not only impervious to any elements, but completely waterproof. We take this design detail for granted today, but its design completely revolutionized the watch industry when Rolex introduced and patented it in 1926. (Note: This Rolex Submariner from the late 1960s or early 1970s, but I shared it with you to perfectly illustrate how a Rolex Oyster Case works).

In the above photo we also see the exposed Rolex movement and on the bottom half of the movement, we see the automatic winding rotor which uses gravity to spin around in either direction to "automatically" wind the watch. Later in this chapter we will explore how Rolex in 1931 once again revolutionized the watch industry by bringing the first "automatic" watch to market which Rolex named the "Perpetual." So a Rolex "Oyster Perpetual" is a waterproof watch that is self-widing or perpetually winds itself from the motion of your wrist moving around.


The First Professional Dive Watch?

This is kind of profound, but in 1926 Rolex simultaneously developed and brought to market the Rolex Oyster pocket-watch (pictured below) at the same time they developed the Rolex Oyster wrist-watch (pictured above).


The photo above and below of the Rolex Oyster pocket watch appear courtesy of the renowned Rolex historian, James Dowling. Ironically, as we will see in the next chapter of this story, the Rolex Oyster pocket watch pictured above and below would go on to become the first professional Rolex dive watch.


The Mermaid & The Oyster

On October 7, 1927 a British woman named Mercedes Gleitze (pictured below) who worked as a bilingual secretary in Westminister became the first Englishwoman to swim the English channel from France to England.



To make a long story short, Mercedes was accused of having not swam the whole way, so she announced she would do it again and this famous next attempt was referred to as "The Vindication Swim."

Hans Wilsdorf learned about this story and met with Mercedes Gleitze and asked her to wear one of his ladies Rolex Oyster watches. Mercedes agreed and attempted to swim the channel again.

Mercedes did not make it all the way and was pulled out of the water 7 miles from England. Hans Wildorf was a brilliant marketing strategist. He ignored the fact that Mercedes did not complete the second attempt and very successfully used her celebrity endorsement to advertise his remarkable Rolex Oyster. If you want to learn much more all the details of Mercedes Glietze's story please click here.


Mercedes Gleitze Rolex Oyster Case

The two photos below are of Mecedes Gleitze actual Rolex Oyster she wore around her neck on a chain during her "vindication swim." It is kind of strange she wore the watch on a chain around her neck as seen in the photo above, and not on her wrist.

In the two photos below, we see the actual watch Mercedes Gleitze wore during her vindication swim. Also notice in the photos below, this is the first example we see of a Rolex with the trademark crown logo which some people refer to as the "Rolex Coronet."



The original Rolex Oyster was revolutionary because it not only had a screw-off front and back, but it also had a winding crown that also screwed down like a hatch on a submarine, thus making it impervious to dust, water and perspiration.


As I previously mentioned, Hans Wilsdorf adroitly positioned the Rolex Oyster as "The Greatest triumph in watch-making history.


Ironically, Rolex had not invented the water-proof watch, but they had perfected it with the Rolex Oyster and had a first-to-market advantage. Rolex ran the following advertisement in a French magazine that targeted the Rolex Oyster at women. I think Hans Wildforf wanted to point out to men that if a woman would wear a wrist watch and achieve an amazing feat like swimming the English Channel than a man certainly could.


Rolex made quite a splash with the Rolex Oyster and ran the following Rolex Oyster Mermaid ad in the French marketplace in 1926.


The Rolex Oyster Perpetual
The First Waterproof Self-Winding Watch

The Development of the Rolex Oyster was an incredible horological achievement, but the challenge was that it made it more difficult to manually wind the watch because you had to unscrew it first, then wind it, then re-screw the Oyster crown.

In 1931 Rolex patented the Perpetual rotor which automatically wound the watch thus eliminating the need to ever wind it again. This not only made it more convenient but also more accurate because the watch would never stop so long as you wore it.

For those too young to remember, manual-wind wrist watches required you wind them daily which was an inconvenience for most people, although some people, like train conductors liked it ;-))))))



The watch pictured pictured above and below was made in 1931 and Rolex put an exhibition caseback on it to easily show potential consumers how it worked. As you can see in the photo below there is a rotor that says "Rolex Auto Rotor" which automatically spins clockwise or counter-clockwise just from the movement of your wrist and "Automatically" winds the mainspring. In other words, even the slightest movement of your wrist (using gravity) will wind the watch, thus keeping the mainspring at optimum tension.

Rolex based the design of their perpetual rotor system on one that Abraham Louis Perelet developed in 1770, and in the years before Rolex perfected their methodology, there was a company named Harwood that created a self-winding rotor system that only moved clockwise, but had many challenges.


By creating an auto-winding or self-winding wristwatch, Rolex once again revolutionized the watch–and again, Rolex was not the first to explore creating a self-winding watch, but Hans Wilsdorf and Rolex were the first to perfect it, patent, and bring it successfully to market.

The patent on the Rolex perpetual eventually ran out in 1948 and everybody was free to develop their own automatic rotor systems that used gravity to wind their movements–and they did...






The Complete History Of
The Rolex Submariner & SEA-DWELLER

Rolex's Conquest Of The Ocean

Table Of Contents






Posted by Jake Ehrlich at 12:45 AM

Chapter 3: The Complete History Of The Rolex Submariner & SEA-DWELLER [Part 1 of 4]






The Complete History Of
The Rolex Submariner & SEA-DWELLER
Rolex's Conquest Of The Ocean
CHAPTER 3


Panerai
& The Italian Royal Navy
The First Professional Rolex Diving Watch
[Part 1 of 4]

Panerai has a fascinating and colorful history which is woven in with the history of Rolex as well as with the Royal Italian Navy, the German Kampfschwimmer's and the Egyptian Army. Rolex and Panerai are thought by many as being distant cousins, but as we will learn, they are much more like brothers:

In 1860 Giovanni Panerai (1825-1897) opened a watch shop in Florence, Italy which sold high-quality pocket watches.

In 1864 Guido Panerai & Figlio was established in Florence and specialized in mechanical engineering and designing and producing high quality equipment for the Italian Navy. This is the company that would one day become Officine Panerai.

In the early 20th Century the Orologeria Svizzera was established and grew beyond just being a watch retailer. The Orologeria Svizzera sold tools and accessories for precision engineering and also contained a repair shop for watches and clocks as well as the first watchmaking school in Florence, Italy.


In 1915 Guido Panerai developed and patented a process for creating luminous markings for equipment made for the Italian Navy, which he called Radiomir. It is likely Guido Panerai had no idea his Radiomir was extremely dangerous and highly toxic since it was based upon Radium which is one of the most radioactive chemical elements known to mankind.

Radiums atomic number is 88 on the periodic table of elements and its symbol is Ra. Radium is more than 1 Million times more radioactive than the same mass of uranium and it has a half-life of 1602 years.

Since radium played such and important role in illuminating the first wrist watches in the dark, we must explore its essence.

Watches that glow in the dark today use a process named Luminova which is a phosphorescent process, which means the material absorbs light energy, stores it, and emanates it until it runs out–kind of like a rechargeable flashlight, or perhaps and even better analogy would be glow-in-the-dark stars you adhere to the ceiling in a child's bedroom.


All forms or light are essentially forms of energy. If you examine a standard soft white incandescent light bulb, you will notice it produces light based upon heat output–same with a campfire or kerosene lantern.

Phosphorescence and fluorescence light sources such as glow-in-the-dark stars, TV or compact fluorescent light bulbs produce light by reacting to radiation energy.

These methods adhere to the same fundamental principle that an external energy source excites atoms, thus causing the release of visual light known as photons.

The original watches "lume" was powered by Radium which conversely radiated stored energy that did not depend on an external source of energy. Radium was used by Guido Panerai as the essential part of his "Radiomir" process which caused elements covered with the Radiomir to glow-in-the-dark.

Radiomir was originally used on instrument dials for ships and artillery targeting equipment which was thought–at the time–to be of great benefit since it did not require and electrical source of energy. In order to understand Radium and its effect on the watch industry we must examine radium in more detail.


Marie Curie
The Discovery Of Radium

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so we may fear less. –Marie Curie (1867-1934)

Radium was discovered by the famous nobel prize winning physicist and chemist, Marie Curie along with her husband Pierre Curie. Marie Curie not only discovered radioactivity, but also coined the term. Madame Curie as she was commonly referred to, was born in Poland in 1867, and she was an amazing scientist–so much so, she was the first scientist in history to win two different Nobel Prizes.

1n 1891 when Maria was 24 years old she moved to Paris to attend the University of Paris where she attained her higher degrees and performed her history changing scientific experiments. Marie was married to Pierre Curie who was a Nobel co-laureate of hers and her daughter, Irene Joliot-Curie and son-in-law Frederic Joliot-Curie were also Nobel prize winners. Imagine what dinner conversation must have been like in the Curie household!!!

Pierre & Marie Currie As A Young Couple In Paris

Marie Curie amazingly discovered two different element on the periodic table of elements which were polonium and and radium. She named polonium after her country of birth–Poland.

Marie was a scientific pioneer and she pioneered the field of radiation therapy which used radioactive isotopes to treat and kill cancer cells. Marie and her husband Piere (pictured above) discovered radium in 1898 in pitchblende which came from the North Bohemia region in the former Czech Republic. The Curie's were studying pitchblende and noticed once they removed the uranium from the pitchblende the remaining material was still highly radioactive.

Next, they separated out a radioactive mixture consisting primarily of barium which gave off a bright green flame color which had never been documented. The Curie's shared their amazing discovery with the world for the first time at the French Academy Of Sciences on December 26, 1898.

In 1910 Curie and Andre-Louis Debierne isolated radium as a pure metal through a process of electrolysis of pure radium chloride solution that used a mercury cathode and distilling in an atmosphere of hydrogen gas. Unfortunately, years later, Radium exposure was blamed for Madame Curies premature death.

Radium is an alkaline earth metal that is silvery white metallic looking and when it was first used for creating self-luminous paint for watches, aircraft switches, clocks and instrument dials it was not known that it was highly radioactive and deadly.

In 1915 when Guido Panerai applied for his patent application for Radiomir, he obviously had no idea how deadly and toxic Radium was.

Nobody knows for certain how many watch dial painters who used their lips to shape camel haired paintbrushes died from radiation poisoning. At the minimum it is in the hundreds, but more than likely in the thousands–internationally.

Essentially the radium would get stored in their bones where it would get converted to calcium and replace bone marrow and kill them. Radium was used as late as the 1950s, although tritium typically replaced it. Tritium is also potentially dangerous if ingested, but it replaced radium. Today, luminova has replaced both. Luminova is not radioactive and thus it is safe.
The Radium Girls

There is a famous piece of American history typically referred to as "The Radium Girls" who are pictured below. The Radium Girls were a group of female factory workers who experienced radiation poisoning from painting watch dials with glow-in-the-dark radium-based-paint in Orange, New Jersey in the U.S.A. in 1917.

The Radium Girls were told the paint was harmless. They however ingested deadly amounts of radium when they would lick their camel hair paintbrushes to sharpen the tip.

The radium girls thought the glow-in-the-dark radium paint was fun, so they would paint their fingernails with the radium paint and even use it as makeup or put it on their teeth. Then they started dropping like flies. Five of the radium girls sued their employer in a court case which established the right of individual workers who contract occupational diseases to sue their employer.

Female employees at the U.S. Radium Corporation in 1922 painting radium onto watch dials

From 1917 to 1926, the U.S. Radium Corporation was engaged in the process of extracting radium from carnoite ore to produce luminous paints which were marketed under the "Undark" brand name.

U.S. Radium was a defense contractor and major supplier of radioluminescent watches to the U.S. Military. U.S. Radium Corporation's plant in Orange, New Jersey employed over a hundred women to paint radium glow-in-the-dark paint on watch dials and other various instrument panels.

The going pay rate for painting 250 dials per day was around a penny and a half per dial. Management knew the paint was very dangerous but they did nothing to protect the employees. After tremendous difficulty the Radium Girls won the lawsuit which set a significant precedent in American labor law.

It is profound to note radium was used as an ingredient in some foods for taste and as a preservative. It was even used as an additive in toothpaste, hair creams, and was even put in some foods as a curative agent.

The first Panerai watches made by Rolex for Panerai had the Panerai Radiomir designation on the dial and these radioactive watches were produced up until 1954.


How Radium Paint Glows

When zinc sulfide is mixed into paint with radium, the zinc sulfide emits light when it is struck by the radioactive particles from the radium. Over time the zinc sulfide "wears out" and ceases to glow. This typically leads unsuspecting wearers to think the paint is no longer radioactive, while it is still almost just as radioactive as the day it was made!!!

Ironically, it is still unsafe to wear these old Panerai watches because they still emit an unsafe level of radioactivity as we see in the two photos below that were taken by Philippe, of a geiger counter measuring the current level of radioactivity being emitted by the radium. Since the half life of Radium is 1602 years, it will be many, many years before these watches are safe to wear.


The fact that these watches are still highly radioactive does not diminish their historical and financial value. Quite the contrary. These old watches typically are valued at over $100,000 U.S. Dollars.


Panerai Tools

Let's take a closer look at Panerai. Before making wristwatches, Officine Panerai specialized in making instrumentation controls and tools for the Italian Navy. Pictured below we see a photo of an Original Panerai compass and depth gauge. It is important to note these devices as well as every original Panerai watch ever made were only available to the Italian Panerai company and were NOT sold to the general public.


In this next photo we see an original Panerai flashlight and wrist-worn depth gauge along with a Panerai professional diving watch from 1946. Soon we will be taking a much closer look at the evolution of the Panerai professional diving watches, which Rolex began producing in 1935, but it is important to note the half-moon-crescent crown gaurd pictured below, which is a patented design trademark of Panerai did not arrive until 1946.


Before we more closely examine the evolution of the professional Panerai dive watches, I want to give you a visual frame-of-reference for the size scale of the original Panerai watches. All the Panerai professional dive watches Rolex ever made for Officine Panerai were 47mm. The photo below shows a 47mm Panerai next to a Rolex Military Submariner [Reference 5517] which is 40mm.

Ironically back in the 1960s when the Rolex "Milsub" was made it was considered to be a huge watch and the Panerai from decades earlier was considered to be crazy huge. Today the standard Rolex Submariner is beginning to look dainty and the larger Panerai is becoming the standard. It is also interesting to note the Rolex Milsub 5517 (pictured below) was also not available to the general public, but only made for the British military.
Table Of Contents for This Story











The Complete History Of
The Rolex Submariner & SEA-DWELLER
Rolex's Conquest Of The Ocean

Table Of Contents





Posted by Jake Ehrlich at 12:43 AM
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