Rolex 6424: The origin of the Explorer, Airking, and Pro range.

At the start of the 1950s, Rolex had an opulent Oyster range that rhymed with a bourgeois and comfortable life. The symbols of Luxury no longer have the same resonance in a world that is being rebuilt and which has long since sorted out the carefree period of the thirties. Rolex is coming to a turning point in its history, its sales are stagnating, its image is no longer as strong. like its competitors who, boosted by the large production of watches during the Second World War, such as Breitling, Longines, Omega and Waltham, came out of it crowned with prestige. Its competitors have also acquired significant production capacity. Their design offices and their manufacturing lines have undergone innovative modifications that allow them to produce multiple models for professional use with multiple specifications.


 

With such a large number of pilot, sailor or gunner's watches in circulation, the post-war watch market will no longer be that of the 1930s. Indeed, the population, a large majority of whom considered the watch as a distinctive symbol in the same way as a uniform, consider that a watch must reflect the image of the person who wears it.

 

The difficult context of life in the reconstruction of the 1950s will therefore erect the romantic myth of the adventurer who surpasses his limits, and since the war has favored the development of modes of transport: the automobile, the plane and the boats become accessible to more people.

 The years that followed saw the boundaries of accessibility expand and desires evolve. Air travel becomes easy and transcontinental, submarine warfare has revealed that something exists beneath the surface of the sea, and the many tales of veterans describe multiple horizons to be discovered. It is to harmonize with these new decors that give everyone a taste for travel and discovery that Rolex will direct its research with the aim of adapting its range.

 

Switzerland is the country of the saying: “evolution is better than revolution” and its industry applies this rule to the letter. Rolex is going to make a transition from its very urban Oyster Datejust range to a transitional model more suited to non-executive use.

 

As always in the watch industry, it is at the level of the movement that the original impulse is born. With the design of the caliber 1012, of a compact size to allow more latitude in its use, equipped with a double anti-shock device and a more robust and easy-to-maintain 17-jewel mechanism, Rolex will give birth to what will be the origin of the Explorer, Airking and GMT Master models which will evolve to the flagship model: The Rolex Daytona.



Rolex Precision 6424, the transition to the eponymous models.


A case orients the use of the watch and the case of the 6424 will be special: It will be larger. With a size of 36 mm while the majority of Oysters are 34 mm, lug widths of 20 mm and a screw-down crown without a shoulder (like the future Explorer range). Undrilled lugs (like the current Rolex range) and a vanilla-coloured dial with the Rolex logo in the shape of a crown in place of the index at twelve o'clock. A dial in the color of the prototype watch never marketed and lent to the explorer Edmund Hillary for his ascent of Mount Everest in 1953. Note the appearance of the indication of origin "Swiss" under the circular railway of the seconds at the bottom of the dial.

 

The whole makes it possible to produce a watch that is nevertheless very fine with a wider strap that evolves the Oyster Precision model without denying its refined ancestry. The result is an elegant and modern watch with all-terrain uses, a combination that has always been successful since this model, and which has since been a guarantee of enthusiasm and success for Rolex.




It is therefore from this transition model produced in small quantities that Rolex will develop and market its future successful models which, after the Submariner, Explorer, and Airking, will give birth to the brand's future best sellers, including the mythical GMT Master and Daytona, which will not be the last to rely on the innovative and unique path traced by the Rolex Oyster Precision reference 6424.