For more than a century, Rolex has distinguished itself as the most coveted and legendary watch brand in the world. A Rolex has many meanings: the essence of luxury watchmaking, a power tool for movers and shakers, the symbol of the transition to adulthood. New labels pop up, styles come and go, but the brand at the top never changes. Once the record-setter - the Daytona that belonged to Paul Newman was auctioned by Phillips in New York in October 2017 for $17.8 million - it is no surprise that Rolex is the most collected watch label in the world.
Rolex's history is rooted in the visionary spirit of its founder, Hans Wilsdorf. In 1905, the young Wilsdorf founded a company in London to distribute timepieces, but his true dream was to create wristwatches - then in their infancy and not very accurate - that would be technically durable and reliable and extremely elegant. The company first concentrated on producing timepieces of the highest quality, and this quest for precision soon led to the world's first wristwatch to receive the Swiss certificate of chronometric precision, awarded by the Official Watch Rating Centre in Bienne in 1910. Four years later, Kew Observatory in Britain awarded a Rolex watch a Class A certificate, a distinction previously reserved exclusively for marine chronometers.
From that date on, the Rolex wristwatch became synonymous with precision. Milestones of Rolex over the past 100 years include: the first waterproof watch, the first self-winding mechanism, the first wristwatch to fly over Mount Everest, the first diver's watch waterproof to 100 meters, the first to withstand magnetic fields of 1,000 gauss , the first to descend the Mariana Trench.
Selected by specialist Fabienne Reybaud, each of the exceptional Rolex watch models in this beautifully handcrafted Ultimate Collection volume showcase the most valuable and technically innovative models produced by the luxury watchmaker, including watches never before seen in print: From the first wristwatch dating to the early 1900s and the first Oyster Perpetual from 1931, to an Explorer worn during Sir Edmund Hillary's expedition to the summit of Mount Everest in 1953 and the Submariner worn by actor George Lazenby in the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service, they are sure to amaze collectors around the world.
Rolex The Impossible Collection is written in English, has 194 pages and measures W 39.5 x L 47.3 x D 7.5 cm.
