Vintage Rolex: The Largest Collection in the World

Tracing nearly a century of models and moments in the iconic watch brand’s history, this book will delight timepiece aficionados.

A photographic homage to both the Rolex brand and the 25th anniversary of the London-based Vintage Watch Company, Vintage Rolex: The Largest Collection in the World (Rizzoli) celebrates the shop that author David Silver co-owns with his father, who established it in 1995. Sourcing and selling “some of the most prized Rolexes on earth” led to a decision to “photograph, archive and catalogue” every single watch to pass through the store, Silver writes. The resulting pictorial record in the book offers a trip through the history of vintage Rolex watches from circa 1910 through circa 1990.

Silver decided to collate these photos into a book “for the world to enjoy,” a book “dedicated to all those who have bought into the vision of The Vintage Watch Company and who share the passion of its founders.” The hope, he says in the introduction, is that the volume “inspires, seduces and lights a fire in all who choose to read on, so that they will one day purchase their very own piece of Rolex history.”

The text accompanying the images puts the decades of Rolex into perspective, starting with founder Hans Wilsdorf’s arrival in London in 1905. He set up shop there with his English brother-in-law to import and distribute Swiss watches. But Wilsdorf was determined to fulfill his own idea of a watch that would be “both elegant in design and accurate in movement,” the book explains. And he did just that, naming his new brand “Rolex” and eventually moving to Geneva, Switzerland, in 1919.

The Rolex Watch Company he established went on to launch a series of now-iconic firsts that the book highlights both in text and photographs. Among them are the style names familiar to Rolex fans, ranging from the early vintage pocket watches and Officer’s watch to the Ladies’ Vintage and the glamorous, Art Deco-style Ladies’ Diamond. Then there are the Prince, the Men’s Vintage watch and the Oyster. One chapter covers both the Stella model and those featuring stones, including the bejeweled Crown collection of the 1980s. Following chapters focus on the Explorer, the Milgauss, the Submariner, the Sea-Dweller, the GMT-Master, the Chronograph and the Daytona, with the final chapter zeroing in on the Paul Newman Daytona.

The book also includes a glossary of terms, and photos of the many celebrities who have worn the brand. Sean Connery wore his own Rolex Submariner in the 1962 James Bond film Dr. No. Elvis Presley sported one in his film Girls, Girls, Girls the same year. Pablo Picasso wore the GMT-Master in the late 1960s, and Martin Luther King, Jr., wore the yellow gold Datejust in 1967. A 1970 picture of Paul Newman shows the actor with his Cosmograph Daytona — which, the book notes, sold at auction in 2017 for $17.8 million, proving the longevity and intensity of the brand’s popularity.

Main image: ‘The Paul Newman Daytona sits proudly alongside its Daytona brothers in this stunning image.’ Photo: The Vintage Watch Company.