Wrist Watch - Rolex, Switzerland, c. 1919

Record summary

Held and catalogued by Museums Victoria, Melbourne (object number ST 17674), this is a wrist watch, made in Switzerland, dated c. 1919. The Atlas places it in the Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking period (1900 – 1945) of its Wristwatches collection. Recorded dimensions: 0.8 cm (Width), 2.8 cm (Outside Diameter); 40 mm (Length), 30 mm (Width), 10 mm (Height). The record is illustrated with 1 photograph.

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

Wristwatches

Bracelet watches were worn by women from the early nineteenth century — Breguet made one for Caroline Murat, Queen of Naples, in 1810–12 — but the wristwatch only became a man's instrument with military use and aviation in the early twentieth century. Between the World Wars it overtook the pocket watch; the 1920s and 1930s brought rectangular Art Deco cases, water-resistant cases and the first automatic winding systems.

After 1945 the wristwatch became a carrier of identity — dress watches, sports and dive watches, chronographs, calendars — produced by Swiss, American, Japanese, German, Soviet and Chinese industries. The quartz revolution after 1969 and the mechanical renaissance since the 1990s, including the rise of independent watchmakers, complete the story.

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.

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