Renaissance in watchmaking: Rolex in the 1950's: Part II

This is the second of a two part article. Part one of this article can be found here.

Milgauss. Also introduced by Rolex in 1954 with the model number 6451, was the Milgauss. The Milgauss was designed as an anti-magnetic watch specifically for those who worked in areas where electromagnetic fields can wreck havoc on the timing of a watch, like power plants and research labs. The original Milgauss was very similar to the appearance of the Rolex Submariner, with an over-sized case and bezel, with the Twinlock crown, and a riveted Oyster bracelet.

If you expose a mechanical watch to a strong magnetic field, some of the parts in the movement become magnetized. This will cause the mechanism to run quite fast and require demagnetization. The Milgauss' resistance to magnetism Rolex was able to achieve the 1000 Gauss rating by encasing the movement in soft iron, which is known as a Faraday cage,

The word Milgauss is derived from the French word mille, which means one-thousand, and gauss, the unit of the magnetic field. The Rolex Milgauss is able to resist a magnetic field of 1,000 Gauss.

GMT Master. In the 1950's, Rolex sought to create watches for specific industries. A successful expedition to summit Mt. Everest launched in the Explorer. French military specs resulted in the Submariner. During this period Transcontinental flight was becoming mainstream and a new breed of pilots watchers would be needed for pilots flying across the oceans.

Pan-Am asked Rolex to develop a watch which allow pilots to keep track of time in two locations. Pan-Am's team was led by Fredrick Libby, and Rolex's team was led Rene P. Jeanneret. The team came up with the idea of a watch with an additional independent hour hand revolving just once every 24 hours and a rotatable bezel with 24 one-hour markers. The main hour hand rotating one every 12 hours would be read in conjunction with the 12 hour markers on the dial, while the second hour hand, rotating once every 24 hours would be read in conjunction with the 24 hour markers in the bezel. The bezel could be rotated to quickly change the time zone of the 24 hour hand. Thus, 1955 saw the birth of the Rolex GMT Master. The first GMT Master was based on a Rolex "Turn-O-Graph" with a different bezel and the movement normally fitted to Turn-O-Graphs had an additional 24 hour driving wheel and a calendar disk. One of these watches was issued to each Pilot, First Officer and Navigator in Pan Am.


Day-Date. In 1956, Rolex made another improvement on its popular Datejust watch by adding a day display at the 12 o'clock, this watch was called the Day-Date. With its release it took over the role of Rolex's flagship watch, and thus is offered only in precious metal models. Fifty years later, it still hold the distinction of being Rolex's flagship offering, though arguably now shared with the Yachtmaster II.

The Day-Date is often called the President. It came to be known as the “President” when Rolex gave a Day-Date's to President Eisenhower to celebrate his re-election in 1956, this model featured a new bracelet and the which came to be known as the “President." The Day-Date can also be purchased with a Oyster bracelet, but the Presidents bracelet is exclusive to this model.

The Rolex Cosmograph Daytona would follow in the 60's, the Explorer II in the 70's, the 90's would see the Yatchmaster, and just four years ago the Yatchmaster II. Through the years, Rolex has made incremental improvements in its watches, with sapphire crystal glass, Solid End Link bracelets and the Parachrome-Blu hairspring to name a few, but no decade has seen so many advancements in Rolex's watchmaking as the turbulent 50s.