Rolex wristwatch, circa 1920s

Record summary

Catalogued by Antiquorum auction archive, Geneva (lot Lot 374-140), this is a wristwatch by Rolex, made in Switzerland, dated circa 1920s. The Atlas places it in the Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking period (1900 – 1945) of its Wristwatches collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: silver. The record is illustrated with 2 photographs.

Assembled from the source record's structured fields. Dates and attributions are given as the source states them; where a field is missing the Atlas leaves it blank rather than estimating.

Catalogue description

Atlas type guide

Dive and water-resistant watches

Keeping water and dust out of a wristwatch was a long-standing challenge. Rolex's screw-down Oyster case (1926) and Omega's Marine (1932) were landmarks; in the early 1950s Blancpain's Fifty Fathoms and Rolex's Submariner defined the professional dive watch with rotating bezels for timing dives, luminous dials and high water resistance. The ISO 6425 standard (1982) later codified what a 'diver's watch' must do.

Dive watches became icons of post-war design and exploration, and their evolution — helium escape valves, ceramic bezels, saturation-diving depth ratings — records the history of underwater work.

General guidance written by the Atlas editors about this kind of object. It is not a statement about this particular piece; for that, rely on the source record above and on physical examination.