Magazine Feature The World Is Your Oyster: The Rolex Oyster Perpetual "Jubilee Dial"

This story was originally published in Hodinkee Australia & New Zealand Volume 1. Get your copy here.

Photography by Greg Delves.

A century ago this year, Rolex announced an innovation that almost instantly became a benchmark in watchmaking: the Oyster case. This development – arguably more than any other – planted the now universally held idea that Rolex watches are both durable and reliable. And to mark 100 years of the Oyster case, the Crown debuted not one but two new special edition models in the Oyster Perpetual 41 ‘100 Years’ in yellow Rolesor, and an OP 36 with an eye-catching ‘Jubilee’-motif dial.

For decades before the arrival of the Oyster case, the ingress of dust and water into the cases of both pocket and wristwatches was a major issue for watchmakers, with dust gumming up the moving works and moisture causing rust and movement damage. The Oyster case solved those issues, but its story isn’t just about threaded crown calculations or patents filed – it’s also about how the world of brand ambassadors (or Testimonees, as Rolex has always called them) grew from humble beginnings to the multi-billion-dollar industry we know today.

Under founder Hans Wilsdorf’s direction, Rolex first began making water-resistant watches just five years after it was established, around 1910, using a one-piece case manufactured by Borgel. The one-piece case was eventually superseded, around 1919, by Borgel’s three-piece case, which was a forerunner to what would become the Oyster case. This three-piece case featured a caseback and a bezel with a crystal that both screwed down into the main case, but the one weak point that remained was the crown.

Wilsdorf began to solve this issue with the purchase of a Perret and Perregaux screw-down crown patent in 1925, which he improved upon with the help of case maker C.R. Spillmann & Co SA by adding an internal clutch that allowed the crown to be screwed down even when the movement was fully wound. Just a year later, the first Oyster case was born, arriving as an octagonally shaped three-part case that featured a screw-down caseback and a bezel with a crystal, as well as a screw-down crown with an integrated clutch mechanism that solved one of watchmaking’s more enduring problems.

“The fact that, like an oyster, it can remain an unlimited time underwater without detriment to its parts, gave me the idea of christening it the ‘Rolex Oyster’, the name under which it has become famous throughout the world,” Wilsdorf explained about the decision to name his creation the Oyster case.

With his new water-resistant case secured with a pair of pending patents (CH120851 and CH120848), Wilsdorf was then able to do what he was best at: marketing the Rolex brand. One of his most famous campaigns was born in the weeks after October 1927, when Mercedes Gleitze became the first British woman to swim across the English Channel after an arduous 15-hr 15-min journey. A few days after her achievement had become headline news, a rival swimmer, Dorothy Cochrane Logan, falsely claimed that she had swum the distance first, creating doubt about Gleitze’s achievement and leading her to agree to defend her record by completing the distance again in bitterly cold October waters in what became known as the “vindication swim”.

Wilsdorf recognised the high-profile swim was the perfect platform to demonstrate the capabilities of his new Oyster case, and convinced Gleitze to wear an early pre-production prototype of his watch on a ribbon around her neck.

While the vindication swim was ultimately unsuccessful, with Gleitze forced to abandon the attempt after 10 freezing hours in the water, to Wilsdorf’s delight, the Rolex Oyster case emerged from the icy English Channel in perfect working order. 

“You will like to hear that the Rolex Oyster watch I carried on my Channel swim proved itself a reliable and accurate timekeeping companion even though it was subjected to complete immersion for [10 hours and 24 minutes] in seawater at a temp of not more than 58 [Fahrenheit] and often as low as 51,” Gleitze reported back to Rolex headquarters following her second swim. “This is to say nothing about the sustained buffeting it must have received. Not even the quick change to the high temp of the boat cabin when I was lifted from the water seemed to affect the even tenor of its movement.”

To celebrate the achievement of both Gleitze and the Oyster case, Wilsdorf took out a full-page advertisement on the front of London’s Daily Mail to declare “the debut of the Rolex Oyster and its triumphant march worldwide”. This moment also saw Gleitze effectively become the first Rolex Testimonee, an ambassador program that continues to this day and remains tied to the personal achievements of those who excel in their fields.

In the decades after Gleitze first plunged into the frigid waters of the English Channel, Wilsdorf’s watchmakers continued to improve on the Oyster case, with the next major advancement arriving in 1953 with the debut of the now-legendary Rolex Submariner. The Submariner was equipped with a screw-down crown that featured the Twinlock system, which replaced the original metal gasket with two rubber O-ring gaskets that not only improved the water resistance but also maintained a degree of water resistance even if the crown wasn’t screwed down. The Triplock winding crown followed in 1970 with the introduction of the Sea-Dweller, further improving on the Twinlock system by using four gaskets inside the crown and the winding stem’s case tube, bumping up the water resistance to between 300m and 3900m depending on the model.

Now, 100 years after the Oyster case was first unveiled, Rolex is marking the centenary with a truly celebratory watch in the Oyster Perpetual 36 ‘Jubilee Dial’ ref. 126000. Looking anywhere else but the dial, it’s a very familiar sight with a brushed 36mm Oystersteel case (11.4mm thick), screw-down Twinlock crown that guarantees 100m of water resistance, and a brushed three-link Oyster bracelet secured by an Oysterclasp with an Easylink system for 5mm of adjustment. 

Where things get exciting is the dial, where we’ve got a fresh take on the tried-and-true Jubilee dial that arrives with a cacophony of colour that spells out R-O-L-E-X in 10 different bright tones. While some see it as a follow-up to the OP’s vibrant lacquer dials of 2020, the bubbly ‘Celebration’ dial of 2023, or as drawing some inspiration from the embroidered ‘Arazzi’ series of Italian artist Alighiero Boetti, the history of Jubilee dials dates back to 1985 and the 40th anniversary of the Rolex Day-Date (also the 80th anniversary of Rolex SA). These past Jubilee dials feature a similar ROLEX pattern to this latest model, but instead of being laboriously printed 10 distinct times to achieve a kaleidoscopic explosion of colour, the dials were engraved with the monogram to achieve an eye-catching play of depth and light.

Not only is this latest Jubilee dial an unambiguously fun way to execute a dial (especially from a watchmaker known for its conservative, iterative approach to development), but it brings more than a touch of personality to what is Rolex’s simplest, most approachable design. As one would expect from Rolex, the execution of the multicoloured Jubilee dial is flawless, with no bleeding of colour on the edges, and perhaps more impressively, it remains solidly legible considering how busy the dial is.

What’s most charming about this watch is how loudly it celebrates water resistance in watchmaking, a part of collecting that very few of us think about regularly. Thanks largely to Hans Wilsdorf and Rolex, we no longer need to worry about our watches becoming rusty from shower steam or gumming up with dust, because that problem was solved a century ago with the arrival of the Oyster case. The screw-down crown is a long way from the visual spectacle of a multi-axis tourbillon or a cloisonné enamel masterpiece, but just like the best, most reliable element of any thoughtfully designed system, it’s easy to forget it’s there.

Anyone who’s made anything knows how hard it is to do a simple thing well, and that’s why, now, a century after it arrived on the scene, the Oyster case deserves remembering.

Hodinkee Australia & New Zealand Vol. 1 is available now, with three different cover stars: A. Lange & Söhne, Rolex and Vacheron Constantin editions. Order your favourite cover online here, or from newsagents around the country.