It surprises many people to learn that Rolex, the iconic watch maker, is actually a charity. Well, it is not really a charity, the Rolex corporation is owned by a charity, The Hans Wilsdorf Foundation, and has been since 1960.
Hans Wilsdorf founded the company that would become Rolex in 1905. Wilsdorf became convinced that wrist watches would soon replace pocket watches. In 1914, just weeks before World War I broke out, Wilsdorf wrote that he believed “pocket watches will almost completely disappear and that wrist watches will replace them definitely!”
Wilsdorf’s prediction came true almost immediately. World War I increased the demand for wrist watches exponentially. Men in the trenches needed a watch that was handy and reliable. They often needed to coordinate with other units, sometime miles away. If they were going to attack the enemy on the other side of no man’s land, it was essential that they all do so at the same time.
Hans Wilsdorf came up with the name of his iconic brand in 1908. He had been playing with various combinations of letters without finding a satisfying combination. Then, one day, he was riding on the upper level of a double-decker, horse-drawn bus along Cheapside in London when a “good genie” whispered the word “Rolex” into his ear. Cheapside is a financial district. Charles Dickens once called it “the busiest throughfare in the world.” During the Middle Ages, they held jousting tournaments there, and it is mentioned in the film “A Knight’s Tale.”
I am often asked what makes Rolex watches so special? Is it the quality, the craftmanship, the history? You might as well ask why we value gold. Rolexes are just cool! Speaking of cool, Steve McQueen had one. He never wore it in a movie, just in real life. McQueen’s Rolex Submariner sold at auction for $234,000. Now, that may seem like a lot for a watch, but it is not the record. In 2017, Paul Newman’s 1968 Rolex Daytona sold for an astonishing $17.8 million. A price that made that iconic watch decidedly more precious than gold.
If you have a Rolex or want a Rolex or just love the watch, consider coming to The Rolex Party at Underwood’s Jewelers in Ponte Vedra on Oct. 3 from 6 to 8 pm. This is the second Rolex party co-sponsored by Standfast Asset Management. The first was a huge success. And be sure to bring your watches for “show and tell.”
And now, back to the charities. Hans Wilsdorf had no children. In 1945, he founded the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation and donated his shares of Rolex to the foundation upon his death in 1960. Each year the foundation donates hundreds of millions of Swiss francs to various causes. It is one of the largest nonprofits in Switzerland.
Like most things Swiss, the foundation is very secret. Each year, about a third of the money goes to humanitarian aid, a second third to animals and the ecosystem and a final third for local projects in Geneva, where it is known simply as “the Foundation.”
Annually, Rolex Awards are given to innovators who make the world a better place. Beth Koigi of Kenya won one of the 160 Rolex Awards given over the decades. Her company, Majik Water, uses atmospheric water generators to pull water out of the air in a part of the world where water is more precious than gold.
