This is my outside correspondent, Amy, who I've sent to a Rolex boutique to buy me a platinum Daytona, one of the most expensive sought after watches the brand makes.
What she doesn't realize is that her mission is doomed, not because she can't afford a Daytona, though she can't, and not because she's wearing sneakers with a prominent ice cream stain, though she is.
No, she's gonna fail, because walking into a Rolex dealer and buying their most expensive watch is impossible, thanks, in part, to Rolex's very unique ownership structure, which I will explain, and then some, while Amy wanders around the Rolex store, following a guy who's going around counting on the watches until she finally asks him, "Why are you doing all that?"
And he says that it's to make sure they're all there, which she guesses was obvious.
All right, so Rolex was founded in 1905 by this guy, Hans Wilsdorf.
It was originally a timepiece import and distribution company called Wilsdorf and Davis.
And in 1908, he named their watchmaking business Rolex, because a genie whispered it in his ear.
In the decades that followed, the whole company became Rolex, and it helped popularize wristwatches over pocket.
and made some of the most accurate wrist watches of that era.
By 1944, Wilsdorf was in his mid 50s and thinking about what the brand would become once he was gone.
