destrodan
509
Fair question, but by the same measure was a Rolex a Rolex back then?
To play devil's advocate, vertical integration is a relatively new concept for the watchmaking industry so much of the 20th century was a cobbling together of various outsourced parts (in Rolex's case, we have suppliers C.R. Spillman SA, Genex, Gay Freres, Singer, Lemrich, Beyeler, Stern, Virex et Joli Poli, Boninchi, Aegler/Borel movements, among others). It was only starting in the early 1990s onward that vertical integration occurred for Rolex let alone other watch companies.
In short, most of the watchmaking industry was outsourced to each other.
At the end of the day, though, Panerai, as the executor of the request, created Panerai. Just like Wilsdorf created Rolex. Even if they had underlying suppliers.
Although not always successful, I try to look at watchmaking history the same way those who lived through it would have, and did approach the question.
Under either scenario (Rolex created the dial and placed "Panerai" on it or Panerai created the dial and it was assembled with the watch), Rolex must have been comfortable with the end-creation being largely credited to Panerai or they wouldn't have been happy with such a dial making it onto 'their' watch.
That said I would love to hear others' thoughts on this suggestion (rebuttals, etc).
Panerai design
Is this truly Italian design,or they just take a Rolex design and make it bigger?History shows us that taking an already consecrated design and simply make it bigger is not always a winning formula but this is awesome! ...
Panerai
Yes they are now same size just like in the beginning but ,it is Italian or Swiss design? ...
To me...
The case design was Rolex, or at least the manufacturer that Rolex chose to provide cases, since back then Rolex was more an assembler of parts made by others. The sandwich dials, from the rivet dials through the later ones were Panerai, designed and buil...
Rolex&Panerai
Great info ,thank you .from what I know Rolex provide de cases and the movements and Panerai just put them together,but Rolex already had their same reduced cases design in production even before starting the collaboration with Panerai ,so the Italian bra...
Fair question, but by the same measure was a Rolex a Rolex back then?
To play devil's advocate, vertical integration is a relatively new concept for the watchmaking industry so much of the 20th century was a cobbling together of various outsourced parts (in Rolex's case, we have suppliers C.R. Spillman SA, Genex, Gay Freres...
I now need to add an addendum to my own post :-)
Doing a little research, it looks like the 'cushion case' goes back at least as early as WWI (Omega has a number of examples, and there are many non-branded watches using a cushion case) so now I question whether even Rolex was the initiator of the 'desig...
