Omega History

Founded at La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland in 1848 by 23-year-old Louis Brandt who assembled key-wound precision pocket watches from parts supplied by local craftsmen. He travelled throughout Europe selling his watches from Italy to Scandinavia by way of England, his chief market. After Louis Brandt's death in 1879, his two sons Louis-Paul and Cesar, troubled by irregular deliveries of questionable quality, abandoned the unsatisfactory assembly workshop system in favour of in-house manufacturing and total production control. Due to the greater supply of manpower, communications and energy in Bienne, the enterprise moved into a small factory in January 1880, then bought the entire building in December. Two years later the company moved into a converted spinning-factory in the Gurzelen district of Bienne, where headquarters are still situated today. Their first series-produced calibres, Labrador and Gurzelen, as well as, the famous OMEGA calibre of 1894, would ensure the brand's marketing success.

Louis-Paul and Cesar Brandt both died in 1903, leaving one of Switzerland's largest watch companies - with 240,000 watches produced annually and employing 800 people - in the hands of four young people, the oldest of whom, Paul-Emile Brandt, was not yet 24! Considered to be the great architect and builder of OMEGA, Paul-Emile's influence would be felt over the next half-century. The economic difficulties brought on by the First World War would lead him to work actively from 1925 toward the union of OMEGA and Tissot, then to their merger in 1930 within the group SSIH, Geneva. Under his leadership, then that of Joseph Reiser beginning in 1955, the SSIH Group continued to grow and multiply, absorbing or creating some fifty companies. By the seventies, SSIH had become Switzerland's number one producer of finished watches and number three in the world.

Weakened by the severe monetary crisis and recession of 1975 to 1980, SSIH was bailed out by the banks in 1981. Switzerland's other watchmaking giant ASUAG, principal producer of movement blanks and owner of the Longines, Rado and Swatch brands, was saved in similar fashion one year later. After drastic financial cleansing and a restructuring of the two groups' R&D and production operations at the ETA complex in Granges, the two giants merged in 1983 to form the Holding ASUAG-SSIH. In 1985 the holding company was taken over by a group of private investors under the strategy and leadership of Nicolas Hayek. Immediately renamed SMH, Société suisse de Microélectronique et d'Horlogerie, the new group achieved rapid growth and success to become today's top watch producer in the world. Named Swatch Group in 1998, it now includes Blancpain and Breguet. Dynamic and flourishing, OMEGA remains one of its most prestigious flagship brands.

In 1999 Omega made history by introducing the first mass-produced watch incorporating the revolutionary co-axial escapement invented by English watchmaker George Daniels. Considered by many to be one of the most significant horological advancements since the invention of the lever escapement, the co-axial escapment functions with virtually no lubrication thereby eliminating one of the shortcomings of the traditional lever escapement. By utilizing radial friction instead of sliding friction at the impulse surfaces the co-axial escapement significantly reduces friction, resulting in longer service intervals and greater accuracy over time. Omega is now part of the Swatch Group.

Omega Watches

Omega is a watch company based in Biel/Bienne Switzerland and is one of the most prestigious brands in timepieces. Omega's Speedmaster Professional Chronograph was the first watch worn on the Moon. All subsequent manned NASA missions also utilized this wristwatch. More recently, its Seamaster 300m Diver Chronometer is the current official James Bond watch, used in each of the Bond movies since its first appearance in GoldenEye. Luc Besson's movie The Big Blue featured Omega's Seamaster Professional 600. The watch is currently impossible to replicate due to a lost tool, and therefore also immensely sought after. The Seamaster is a holder of an Imperial Mark, one of only three watches in the world to have one.

Rolex

Rolex is a brand of Swiss wristwatches and accessories renowned for their quality and exclusivity, as well as their cost (from a few thousand to more than one hundred thousand U.S. dollars). The watches have become status symbols of the rich and famous -- as well as the upperwardly mobile career-minded individual. Although a symbol of success, Rolex has earned its strong reputation through innovations in design and function over many decades.

The Rolex,SA company was founded in 1905 by Mr. Hans Wilsdorf and his brother-in-law, Mr. Alfred Davis. Contrary to popular belief, Hans Wilsdorf was neither Swiss, nor a watchmaker. Wilsdorf & Davis was the original name of what later became the Rolex Watch Company. They originally imported Hermann Aegler's Swiss movements to England and placed them in quality cases made by Dennison and others. These early wristwatches were then sold to jewellers, who then put their own names on the dial. The earliest watches from the firm of Wilsdorf and Davis are usually marked "W&D" -- inside the caseback only.

Hans Wilsdorf registered the trademark name "Rolex" in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland during 1908. The word was made up, but its origin is obscure. One story, which was never confirmed by Wilsdorf, is that the word "Rolex" came from the French phrase horlogerie exquise, meaning exquisite watch industry.

The Wilsdorf & Davis company moved out of Great Britain in 1912. Wilsdorf wanted his watches to be affordable, but taxes and export duties on the case metals (silver and gold) were driving costs up. From that time to the present, Rolex has been headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, though the company owns facilities in other cities (Bienne, etc) and continents (North America, Asia, Australia, etc).

The company name Rolex was officially registered on November 15, 1915. It is thought this change was part of a drive to popularize wristwatches, which at the time were still considered a novelty largely for women (pocket watches were more common). Wilsdorf was said to desire his watch brand's name to be easily pronouncable in any language. The company name was offically changed to the Rolex Watch Company during 1919. It was later changed to Montres Rolex,SA and finally Rolex,SA.

Among the company's innovations are the first self-winding watch; the first waterproof watch case; the first wristwatch with a date on the dial; the first watch to show two timezones at once; and most importantly the first watchmakers to earn the coveted chronometer certification for a wristwatch. To date, Rolex still holds the record for the most certified chronometer movements in the category of wristwatches. Another little known fact is that Rolex participated in the development of the original quartz watch movements. 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 early 1970s.

The first self-winding Rolex watch was offered to the public in 1931, powered by an internal mechanism that used the movement of the wearer's arm. This not only made watch-winding unnecessary, but eliminated the problem of over-winding a watch and harming its mechanism. Rolex was also the first watch company to create a truly waterproof watch -- another milestone from novelty to functional timepiece. Wilsdorf even went so far as to have a specially made Rolex watch attached to the side of the Trieste bathyscaphe, which went to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. The watch survived and tested as having kept perfect time during its descent and ascent.

Rolex has also made a reputation in watches suitable for the extremes of deep-sea diving, aviation and mountain climbing. Sports models include the Oyster Perpetual Sea Dweller 2000 in 1971, the first watch to incorporate a gas-release valve, to dispense helium during decompression. Another is the GMT Master, originally developed at the request of Pan Am Airways, to assist pilots in transcontinental flights. The Explorer and Explorer II were developed specifically for explorers who would navigate rough terrain -- such as the world famous Everest Expeditions.

On the more glamorous side, Ian Fleming's James Bond character wore a Rolex GMT Master in spy series' books. In the early EON production Bond films, Commander Bond was seen to wear a Rolex Submariner.

Among modern Rolex watches are the Air-King, Datejust, GMT Master/GMT II, Submariner, Sea-Dweller, Daytona Cosmograph, Day-Date, Oyster Perpetual and Yacht-Master. Most Rolex watches have a case design called the Oyster. Dressy designs usually fall under the sister brand called Cellini. The third line in the Rolex empire is the lesser expensive, but high quality, Tudor brand. The primary types of Rolex bracelets include the Jubilee, Oyster and the President.

Like many high-priced, brand-name accessories, Rolex watches are often counterfeited and sold in markets around the world that cater to tourists. These fakes are mainly produced in China and Taiwan -- and retail for $30 to an upwards of $1000 for replicas fabricated with solid gold. In July 2005, in Rome, it was possible to buy a replica Datejust for 20 Euros. By some accounts, over 75% of all fake watches produced annually are copies of Rolex designs. Even the self-winding mechanical design is often replicated using standard, high-quality swiss-made movements (most often those of ETA[1]), resulting in fakes that laymen will find difficult to distinguish from the originals.

Rolex,SA, the current company name, is not a public corporation. In fact, it is a foundation initiated and originally funded by Hans Wilsdorf and the Aegler family. According to foundation documentation, the Rolex,SA company can never be sold, nor traded on any stock market.