Why Rolex Needed a Watch For Cave Explorers.

Summary

Michael dives into the history of Rolex and specifically the Explorer II (reference 16570), a watch designed for spelunkers, cave explorers, and Arctic adventurers. The video explores why Rolex dominates the watch industry - in 2023 their sales surpassed their top five competitors combined - and attributes this to their masterful marketing from the very beginning.

The story traces Rolex’s rise from Hans Wilsdorf’s vision to create durable, accurate wristwatches, through their innovative chronometer certification in 1910, waterproof Oyster case, and automatic perpetual movement. A key marketing moment was Mercedes Gleitze’s “Vindication Swim” across the English Channel wearing a Rolex Oyster around her neck. The video explains how the Explorer II’s unique 24-hour hand and polar dial were specifically designed to help explorers distinguish day from night in environments where that becomes dangerous - caves and the Arctic.

Highlights

”A Genie Whispered the Name Rolex”

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“The founder of Rolex Hans Wilsdorf said he came up with the name Rolex when a genie whispered it into his ear while he was on a horse-drawn bus in London.” — Michael, 0:48

”Unprecedented Dominance - Top Five Competitors Combined”

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“In 2023 their watch sales surpassed their top five competitors combined and Morgan Stanley has called this unprecedented dominance.” — Michael, 0:29

”Mercedes Gleitze’s Vindication Swim”

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“This swim - the Vindication Swim - was a BFD. It was a big deal all of a sudden because this woman Mercedes is trying to prove that she in fact is the greatest swimmer.” — Michael, 4:33

”Except the Moon - That Goes to Omega”

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“Rolex did literally every single great human achievement since Rolex came out - they’ve been there… except the moon. Didn’t get to the moon, did you Rolex? That goes to Omega.” — Michael, 9:45

”Make a Watch for Every Dream and Get It On the Winner”

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“They essentially have a model for every dream, every human accomplishment that you could possibly have, and their whole goal is make a watch that’s fit for that scenario and get it on the winner - has to be on the winner.” — Michael, 14:11

Key Points

• Rolex Explorer II 16570 (0:00) - Watch designed for spelunkers, cave dwellers, and Arctic explorers where distinguishing day from night is difficult
• Rolex Market Dominance (0:27) - In 2023, Rolex watch sales surpassed their top five competitors combined, called “unprecedented dominance” by Morgan Stanley
• Hans Wilsdorf’s Vision (0:48) - Rolex founder claimed a genie whispered the name “Rolex” to him on a horse-drawn bus in London
• Michael’s Watch Background (1:06) - 12 years in the wristwatch world before The Iron Snail, including work with Theo and Harris
• Chrono24 Partnership (1:32) - Chrono24 certification program verifies watch authenticity to combat counterfeits
• Rolex Marketing Machine (2:26) - Marketing has been Rolex’s biggest strength since inception
• Chronometer Certification 1910 (2:59) - First watches certified accurate to -4 to +6 seconds per day variance
• Mercedes Gleitze’s Vindication Swim (3:49) - First British woman to swim the English Channel wore a Rolex Oyster on a necklace during her famous swim
• Rolex Oyster Perpetual Movement (7:43) - Automatic movement powered by wrist motion eliminated need to unscrew crown, improving water resistance
• John Harwood Controversy (8:05) - Rolex got in trouble for implying they invented the automatic movement when John Harwood actually did
• 24-Hour Hand Feature (10:46) - Red 24-hour hand helps distinguish AM from PM when you can’t see the sun
• Polar Dial Introduction (12:41) - White dial rare for Rolex, designed for maximum visibility in dark environments
• Petzl and 1970s Caving Boom (13:05) - In 1968 Bruno Dressler asked Ferdinand Petzl to build rope ascending tools, spawning the caving equipment industry
• Rolex’s Mission (14:11) - Make a watch for every human achievement scenario and get it on the winner

Mentions

Companies

• Rolex (0:00) - Main subject of the video, dominant Swiss watchmaker
• Chrono24 (1:32) - Big watch reseller that sponsored a watch for the video
• Morgan Stanley (0:33) - Called Rolex’s market dominance “unprecedented”
• Omega (9:51) - Beat Rolex to the moon
• Petzl (13:05) - Caving equipment manufacturer founded in 1970s
• Theo and Harris (1:20) - YouTube watch channel Michael worked for
• Rocket Money (5:29) - Video sponsor for budgeting and subscription management

Products & Technologies

• Rolex Explorer II 16570 (0:00) - The specific watch model featured in the video
• Rolex Oyster (4:56) - Rolex’s waterproof case design
• Rolex Oyster Perpetual (8:48) - Automatic movement watch line
• Sky Dweller (0:12) - Michael’s pick for weirdest Rolex
• Yacht Master 2 (0:12) - Another candidate for weirdest Rolex
• Bumper Movement (8:35) - Original automatic movement where weight bumped on springs
• Gore-Tex (13:15) - Mentioned as example of 1970s outdoor technology explosion

People

• Hans Wilsdorf (0:48) - Founder of Rolex
• Mercedes Gleitze (3:49) - First British woman to swim the English Channel, wore Rolex during Vindication Swim
• Mona McLennan (4:14) - Woman who falsely claimed to have swum the Channel faster
• John Harwood (8:05) - Actually invented the automatic watch movement
• Bruno Dressler (13:05) - Asked Ferdinand Petzl to build rope ascending tools
• Ferdinand Petzl (13:05) - Founded Petzl caving equipment company

Surprising Quotes

“In 2023 their watch sales surpassed their top five competitors combined and Morgan Stanley has called this unprecedented dominance.” — 0:29

“The founder of Rolex Hans Wilsdorf said he came up with the name Rolex when a genie whispered it into his ear while he was on a horse-drawn bus in London.” — 0:48

“Rolex did literally every single great human achievement since Rolex came out - they’ve been there… except the moon. Didn’t get to the moon, did you Rolex? That goes to Omega.” — 9:45

“They essentially have a model for every dream, every human accomplishment that you could possibly have, and their whole goal is make a watch that’s fit for that scenario and get it on the winner - has to be on the winner.” — 14:11

Transcript

0:00 This is a Rolex Explorer 16570. Some people say it is the weirdest Rolex that Rolex ever made. I wholeheartedly disagree - I think it is the Sky Dweller or the Yacht Master 2. Either way, this watch was designed for spelunkers, cave dwellers, Arctic explorers and the like. The question is why and how.

0:21 Also hello! In order to understand this today, we’ll be dissecting why Rolex just flat out dominates absolutely everybody. In 2023 their watch sales surpassed their top five competitors combined, and Morgan Stanley has called this unprecedented dominance. Michael says that’s crazy, you guys must be so rich.

0:41 Also while shooting this video I burned the watch - can you see that at six? That little red right there? FML, that sucked. The founder of Rolex, Hans Wilsdorf, said he came up with the name Rolex when a genie whispered it into his ear while he was on a horse-drawn bus in London. Funny enough, that’s exactly how I came up with the name The Iron Snail.

0:58 If your job makes it very hard for you to discern whether it is nighttime or daytime, and that is very dangerous, this is the Rolex for you. This is the one you want.

1:06 Also this video may seem totally out of left field if you haven’t been following every move of my career. I’ve actually worked in the wristwatch world for 12 years before The Iron Snail. I photographed watches for a guy on Reddit, then I sold watches myself on Reddit, I edited for a YouTube channel called Theo and Harris for quite a few years, then I ended up working for Theo and Harris, then Christian and I started to make films for watch brands and met a bunch of watch brands. I’ve been in the sticks for a while.

1:32 I did not buy this watch. The brand Chrono24, big watch reseller, reached out to me and said hey, if you want to buy a watch we’ll refund it if you shout out our certification program. And I said, your certification program? And they said oh let us explain - there’s a lot of fake fraudulent watches out there, so now if you’re going on Chrono24 and looking for a watch you can click the certification filter and only see watches that are either partner certified or certified by Chrono24.

2:06 Partner certification is when the watch is certified by a verified partner and is done before the watch is listed. And Chrono24 certification is when the watch is certified by the Chrono24 team and is done after the watch is sold. And I said oh okay, that makes a lot of sense because there is a lot of fakes out there, and whether you’re buying your first Rolex or your 80th Rolex, you want it to be real.

2:26 The most important thing that we need to understand is that Rolex is a marketing madman, a marketing machine, and they have been since their inception. Marketing is their biggest thing. Wristwatches were getting into fashion - before that obviously it was pocket watches, but around World War I when soldiers were taking their pocket watches and strapping them on their wrists so they could see better as they were shooting people in trenches.

2:47 Rolex did not make the first wristwatch, but Hans Wilsdorf was like “I want to make the first durable and accurate wristwatch.” And a lot of other brands thought that too, of course, but he really hit the nail on the head with marketing.

2:59 Immediately the first thing that Rolex did was get their watches to be chronometer certified in 1910. What does it mean to be COSC certified? Basically they were certified to be accurate by an independent company that wasn’t Rolex. They were certified to be accurate in a bunch of different positions, all within -4 to +6 seconds a day variance of your watch. So they made sure that your watch was accurate.

3:17 And then shortly after the chronometer certification, Rolex went full hog on making their watches waterproof. And this is where the marketing comes in really effective and really one of the coolest stories for Rolex. They were not the first ever brand to make a water resistant wristwatch - there were technologies out there - but Rolex was the big king in mass-producing it and popularizing it.

3:40 And instead of just dropping their watch in a cup or something and being like “look it’s really water resistant,” this is really just where Rolex started to dominate marketing. And one of their most famous marketing stories of all time involves a swimmer named Mercedes Gleitze and the Vindication Swim.

3:53 Mercedes Gleitze was the first ever British woman to swim across the English Channel, and she was also a typist. It was the 1920s, so I’m assuming she just finished typing and was like “I’m going to try and do that today” and then she did. But there was some controversy around her doing it. This is the funniest 1920 story that I’ve ever heard.

4:08 The main reason people didn’t believe Mercedes Gleitze about her incredible accomplishment was because a woman named Mona McLennan came out of nowhere and was like “uh, I actually did that. I swam the English Channel too, way faster than Mercedes.” And the press was like “what, are you kidding me? Do you have any proof?” And she was like “nope, I have no proof. No one was there, I have no photos, no records, nothing. I just did it faster.” And the media was like “Mercedes, are you hearing that?” And she was like “yeah, that’s pretty airtight.”

4:33 Long story short though, this swim - the Vindication Swim - was a BFD. It was a big deal all of a sudden because this woman Mercedes is trying to prove that she in fact is the greatest swimmer and did do that incredible feat. But the weather is way worse and it’s colder, so she lubes herself up in lard and just dives back in the water.

4:54 But before she does, Hans Wilsdorf runs over to her with a necklace and places a Rolex Oyster around her neck right before she swims. And Mercedes actually did not complete the swim - it was too cold, she was fading in and out of consciousness. But in the most 1920s fashion of all time, they were like “wow, that was so impressive that there’s no way Mona is telling the truth. Also, upon further thought, she really provided no evidence.” And then Mercedes pops out, flexes her Rolex to the world - boom, Rolex is an icon.

5:21 [Rocket Money Sponsorship] Hi my name is Michael Christie and I’m a small business owner. This video is sponsored by Rocket Money. Being a small business owner, it’s very hard and it’s not for everyone. Rocket Money helped me with my subscriptions because I had a few that I didn’t even know still existed, so I canceled those. And then they renegotiated other subscriptions that I also didn’t know how much I was paying for them. Rocket Money makes it easier than ever to set budgets so I don’t overspend on videos by accident, which I have a habit of doing. Go to rocketmoney.com/ironsnail or click the link in the description to get started for free. You can also unlock even more features with premium.

7:07 The way Rolex marketed their watch with Mercedes kind of became the new way of doing things for Rolex. They were trying to represent the pinnacle athlete, the pinnacle of human achievement, the most accurate wristwatches. They were ahead of everybody - that was their thing.

7:18 So the perfect storm kind of happened where people are thinking “okay, I’m going to get a wristwatch, I don’t want my pocket watch. I want something that’s accurate and durable. I know that one brand that’s really easy to say had their watch certified to be accurate, and then I saw that thing with that woman who swam with it in the water, so it’s really durable. I’ll get that one.” And that core, that first marketing push - basically Rolex just went off forever. They just had to keep up the achievements.

7:43 45 years after all of that, and 11 years after Hans Wilsdorf passed away, we have the introduction of the Rolex Explorer 2. But in the meantime, two very important things happened in watch world history and also Rolex history.

7:55 First thing - this is a prime example of what I was saying - Rolex popularized something, they didn’t invent it. Rolex actually got in trouble for kind of implying that they did invent this. And John Harwood - he actually invented it.

8:07 It was essentially this: Rolex, in order to make a really truly water resistant watch, has to reduce as much user error as possible. And the biggest area that a user can mess up in is when they have to unscrew the crown of their watch to wind it - they have to remember to screw it back in so that way it’s locked and water can’t come in. But obviously people aren’t perfect and they forget, so then water goes in their watch and breaks it.

8:27 The solution to this is a watch that is powered by the movement of your wrist. So when I move my wrist, a weight is spinning around inside the watch, tightening a spring, keeping the watch ticking. The original version of this was called a bumper movement, so the weight inside didn’t spin all the way 360 degrees around - it bumped on two springs back and forth.

8:44 The really POI brand said “hey, what if we fix that? What if it didn’t bump and it was smooth?” And we called our watches Rolex Oyster Perpetuals. Another great name, got to give it to them for that. So it took off and people loved it, and Rolex was like “we invented that.” And John Harwood was like “what the heck is going on here?”

8:57 The other thing Rolex did during that time that was very nice is they had the first automatic changing date. So it used to be either there was a bezel on the outside or you had to put a pin on the side of the watch to click the date forward, or you had to move the crown. Now with the automatic movement and the power from it and everything like that - click - this would just click at midnight very satisfyingly. Here’s what it sounds like.

9:18 See, essentially Rolex was doing every single possible thing that they could do to remain at the tippy top. And to be honest, you know, it’s not in their opinion, I guess in other people’s opinions, and they have by market share remained at the top forever. And they did that by constantly trying to keep their watches as the number one - what can we innovate and what can we change? And at the same time, who can we partner with that’s doing something great? How can we get to the pinnacle of achievements? How can we get a watch on people’s wrists that are doing that?

9:45 And to be honest, they did literally every single great human achievement since Rolex came out - they’ve been there. Except the moon. Didn’t get to the moon, did you Rolex? That goes to Omega. Rolex CEO sits down at another board meeting and it’s like “full moon up!”

10:05 The biggest problem that Rolex had to address was that if you’re in a cave or if you’re in the Arctic or somewhere where the sun doesn’t set, it’s hard to know if it is daytime or nighttime just by looking at your watch. And you can forget, and that’s dangerous.

10:25 [Clock demonstration with Holly] As you know, clocks go like this throughout the day and the time changes. As you know, clocks - minute hand goes fast, hour hand goes slow, but it goes around twice.

10:46 Rolex added this red 24-hour hand, and of course the bezel is a 24-hour dial. Even though right now it’s 1:34, it could be AM or PM. This is showing me that it’s PM with 24-hour time on the bottom right there.

10:58 Then Rolex updated their movements so the 24-hour hand and the 12-hour hand weren’t linked together, so you could change the time independently. Meaning, if I’m traveling for example and I’m going from California to the East Coast, I can click the hour hand of my watch 3 hours forward and the 24-hour time doesn’t change. So that’s my time at home and that is my time on my travels. That is of course very convenient if you are walking in a cave so big that you are crossing time zones.

11:25 While we make our way back though, I would love to go over the changes that were made from the original 1655 to models after that. First thing obviously is we don’t have the big fat orange hand anymore. I’ve read a bunch of reasons why this change happened - some of the changes was because it fit in with the rest of Rolex’s line a little bit better, they wanted to differentiate the movement and the big changes that came with the watch. I think it’s just a style update and it makes the watch a little bit more easily digestible for the mass market so they don’t have this big fat orange hand.

11:54 The other thing they did was cover their dial in lacquer so it’s very shiny and not matte anymore. This was done for a few reasons - one of them just being it does make the watch look better and fancier and cooler and all that stuff. But the other is this lacquer coating is supposed to make the dial more durable, look more brilliant over time, be more resistant to sun damage. So yeah, put all that together - durability huge plus.

12:14 Although apparently no match for me when I was trying to film b-roll of this. Usually when I’m filming watches I have a light that I put around the watch like this but on a much bigger scale. I do this with a watch so that way I can show off the lume and show off how this glows green. I must have caught the wrong angle and held the watch there for too long, and I don’t know if I burned the crystal or the dial. Worst part of it all - that shot wasn’t even good, not even usable. If I wasn’t talking about it, I wouldn’t even be showing it to you right now.

12:41 And the other thing, and the last thing, and the most important thing, is they introduced the polar dial, which is why this watch is exploding in value or was exploding in value. Rolex doesn’t typically do white dials very, very rarely. Again, the reason that they did this is to get even more visibility, so you can see the time if it’s getting really dark, if you’re in the Arctic and the sun isn’t up for a really long time, if you’re in a cave - you want as much light to bounce off your dial as possible so you can see what time it is.

13:05 But either way, that is how we got here to the design. Now the question is why. The original Rolex Explorer 2 came out in 1971, and as we know many many things in the outdoor world came out in 1970s and 1960s because nylon was exploding in popularity, we were getting a bunch of crazy technologies like Gore-Tex.

13:17 But check this out - in 1968 Bruno Dressler asked Ferdinand Petzl to build a rope ascending tool, today known as the Petzl Croll. Pursuing these developments, Petzl started in 1970s a caving equipment manufactory called Petzl. The development and evolution of mechanical ascension systems extended the practice and safety of vertical exploration to a wider range of cavers. Caving lights are getting better, caving safety equipment - the ropes, the tools, the ascension systems - all of that is all coming together.

13:43 Rolex obviously - the Explorer One existed, but they’re like “this is a totally new generation of explorers. This is like the second generation - from the mountains now to the caves.” Someone can find something crazy, and if they do and they walk out of a cave holding something like Poseidon’s trident and they turn to the press and they’re like “yeah, this is Poseidon’s trident” - boom, look what is front and center at the human achievement: a watch specifically designed for that exact purpose. Wow.

14:11 All of this is happening - like you guys thought it was caves - they essentially have a model for every dream, every human accomplishment that you could possibly have. And their whole goal is make a watch that’s fit for that scenario and get it on the winner - has to be on the winner. And when cave diving and cave exploring was starting to explode and get more and more popular, Rolex is like “okay, let’s make the watch, let’s find the winner.”

14:28 Okay, thank you very much for watching. Reminds me - the vlog is back! The vlog channel - we are going to New York to make some clothing, we’re going to Scotland doing a bunch of cool things, so if you want to check that out, I’m actually vlogging right now so…