[3][4][5][6] After World War I, the company moved its base of operations to Geneva because of the unfavorable economy in the United Kingdom.

[14] Wilsdorf and Davis's main commercial activity at the time involved importing Hermann Aegler's Swiss movements to England and placing them in watch cases made by Dennison and others.

[4][14][15] Wilsdorf wanted the brand name to be easily pronounceable in any language, and short enough to fit on the face of a watch.

[17][better source needed] In November 1915, the company changed its name to Rolex Watch Co. Ltd.[6] In 1919, Hans Wilsdorf moved the company from England to Geneva, Switzerland, because of heavy post-war taxes levied on luxury imports and high export duties on the silver and gold used for the watch cases.

[8][10][14] With administrative worries attended to, Wilsdorf turned the company's attention to a marketing challenge: the infiltration of dust and moisture under the dial and crown, which damaged the movement.

To address this problem, in 1926 a third-party casemaker produced a waterproof and dustproof wristwatch for Rolex, giving it the name "Oyster".

The original patent attributed to Paul Perregaux and Georges Peret, that allowed the watch to be adjusted while maintaining protection from water ingress was purchased by Rolex and heavily marketed.

[19] As a demonstration, Rolex submerged Oyster models in aquariums, which it displayed in the windows of its main points of sale.

In 1927, British swimmer Mercedes Gleitze swam the English Channel with an Oyster on her necklace, becoming the first Rolex ambassador.

To celebrate the feat, Rolex published a full-page advertisement on the front page of the Daily Mail for every issue for a whole month proclaiming the watch's success during the ten-hour-plus swim.

[19] In 1931, Rolex patented a self-winding mechanism called a Perpetual rotor, a semi-circular plate that relies on gravity to move freely.

[21] In 2011, a spokesman for Rolex declined to provide evidence regarding the amount of charitable donations made by the Wilsdorf Foundation, which brought up several scandals due to the lack of transparency.

Although Rolex has made very few quartz models for its Oyster line, the company's engineers were instrumental in design and implementation of the technology during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

In the United Kingdom, the retail price for the stainless steel 'Pilots' range (such as the GMT Master II) starts from £9,350.

[34] Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf created the Air-Prince line to honor RAF pilots of the Battle of Britain, releasing the first model in 1958.

Indeed, the Rolex Explorer was launched to celebrate the successful ascent of Everest in 1953 by the expeditionary team led by Sir John Hunt.

Others who have done so for some years include Gary Player, Arnold Palmer, Roger Penske, Jean-Claude Killy, and Kiri Te Kanawa.

[62] When James Cameron conducted a similar dive in 2012, a specially designed and manufactured Rolex Oyster Perpetual Sea-Dweller Deep Sea Challenge watch was being "worn" by his submarine's robotic arm.

As she sat in the boat, the same journalist made a discovery and reported it as follows: "Hanging round her neck by a ribbon on this swim, Miss Gleitze carried a small gold watch, which was found this evening to have kept good time throughout."

[16] When Hans Wilsdorf heard of this, he offered to replace all watches that had been confiscated and not require payment until the end of the war, if the officers would write to Rolex and explain the circumstances of their loss and where they were being held.

[72] This had the effect of raising the morale among the Allied POWs because it indicated that Wilsdorf did not believe that the Axis powers would win the war.

[16] On 10 March 1943, while still a prisoner of war, Corporal Clive James Nutting, one of the organizers of the Great Escape, ordered a stainless steel Rolex Oyster 3525 Chronograph (valued at a current equivalent of £1,200) by mail directly from Hans Wilsdorf in Geneva, intending to pay for it with money he saved working as a shoemaker at the camp.

185983)[75][76] was delivered to Stalag Luft III on 10 July that year along with a note from Wilsdorf apologising for any delay in processing the order and explaining that an English gentleman such as Corporal Nutting "should not even think" about paying for the watch before the end of the war.

Since the Rolex movement was fully waterproof and had a reserve of two days of operation when inactive, police were able to reasonably infer the time of death.

[78][79] In Singapore on 20 April 1998, a 23-year-old Malaysian named Jonaris Badlishah bludgeoned a 42-year-old beautician Sally Poh Bee Eng to death in order to steal her Rolex and later give it to his girlfriend as a birthday present.