André Heiniger, second Rolex president and successor of the founder Hans Wilsdorf, was a true visionary. His opinion was that the originally very costly quartz watch would soon be totally banal. This already had happened with transistor radios, TV sets, and pocket calculators.
Top-quality mechanical movements would always remain expensive and exclusive due to the large amount of highly qualified labor that is required for manufacturing the parts and assembling them. The inescapable fact that a mechanical device can only tell time approximately could be easily hidden by writing “Superlative Chronometer, Officially Certified” (i.e., the COSC certificate) on the dial. This means a daily rate of plus-six/minus-four seconds per day. In due time, every watch brand in the “upscale” sector copied Heiniger’s concept. Wealthy people don’t need an instrument that tells time: they want a beautiful and exclusive object on their wrist.
Analog Quartz Calibers
Rolex totally ignored microelectronics until the early 1970s; as a shareholder of CEH it obtained 320 Beta 21 calibers out of the 6,000 that were actually produced. Furthermore, Rolex bought 650 pieces of the Beta 22 version produced by Omega; they are known as the Rolex Caliber 5100. In addition, Rolex Bienne was part of the consortium that financed the Neosonic-AFIF adventure with the known, sad end. Rolex Geneva was not involved.
After this easy beginning, it was quite clear to Heiniger that Rolex had to be independent in the realm of microelectronics too. In 1971 he hired René Le Coultre (b. 1918) who was then technical director of the Fédération Horlogère (FH). Le Coultre headed the technical department with a staff of 49, including 10 engineers. His first activity was to set up a top modern electronics lab with 13 people. He was then in a position to design quartz equivalents of Rolex’s mechanical calibers. This was not too difficult: at that time, Rolex only produced a ladies’ watch movement with two hands, a version with three hands, and a men’s watch caliber with sweep seconds hand and date or day/date.
