We like to think that changes in watches happen because of some horological breakthrough or because the industry as a whole decides to change – for example, look at how, ten years ago, everyone decided that all watches had to be 40mm diameter or bigger. Or how a few years ago, everyone was suddenly introducing thin watches. But often, change comes from the most unexpected source; for example, the most exotic Rolex watches happened because of French post-WW2 economic turmoil. A collection of mysterious French-made Rolex cases worth investigating.
Let me explain, in the 12 years after 1946, there were 21 changes of government. In essence, the country was the most unstable in Europe and there were frequent devaluations of the Franc. This posed a problem because France was a firm believer in the Gold Standard, that a country’s currency should be backed by its gold reserves. After WW1, this became the rule and the US Dollar, the Pound Sterling and the French Franc were readily convertible into gold. However, during the 1930s and the Great Depression both Britain and the US abandoned the Gold Standard, but the French held on for as long as possible.
When French citizens saw their currency being constantly devalued, which happened almost annually, they turned their savings into gold and put it under the mattress. This left the government without sufficient gold to meet its reserves, so they instituted a ban on the private purchasing of gold. Gold could only be bought from the Bank of France by licensed jewellers or other industrial users of the metal. Imports of finished gold products were also banned, as this was an obvious way around the prohibition.
Swiss watch brands faced a dilemma; they had French clients who craved gold watches, but they were only allowed to purchase French-made watches, as these had French gold cases. The answer was to have watch movements imported into the country and then house them in gold cases made in France.
However, there were very few industrial case makers in France, so Rolex et. al turned to France’s pool of jewellery talent. Boucheron, Cartier, Chaumet, Clerc, Van Cleef & Arpels were all based in Paris and had nearly a millennium of experience between them, making everything from simple wedding bands to imperial regalia and everything imaginable in between. So hand-made watch cases were no great problem – indeed, many are to this day renowned watch designers in their own right. And so emerged Rolex’s French-made cases.
Every Swiss firm from Omega and IWC to Rolex and Patek followed this route; however, there is a huge difference between a factory-made case produced in the hundreds, if not thousands and a hand-made one built in a jeweller’s atelier. A factory-made case needs to be easy to manufacture, to be able to be reproduced in volume and to use the minimum amount of gold, as the manufacturing costs are minimal once the tooling has been made, but the cost of the gold used is a significant part of the cost.
Whereas the major cost in a jeweller-made case is the wages of the skilled craftsman who constructs the case from scratch, this is why factory-made cases seem almost flimsy when compared to these jeweller-made ones. The other factor worth taking into account is the design, these French jewellers were artists in precious metal, they weren’t particularly interested in making simple rectangles or circular cases with just a little bit of design in the lugs; no, they treated each watch case as a blank canvas and tried to outdo each other in design before handing the design over to the artiste who would physically create the case.
When it comes to Rolex’s French-made cases what that means is rather than sticking to recognisable designs like the Oyster Perpetual, the jewellers ran free with Avant Garde abandon. Rectangular timepieces with what can be described as early examples of integrated lugs with wide, flat, angular surfaces. Or a similar example but with curvy gadroon decoration instead of angular. A square cased piece of vintage Art Deco design with ziggurat levels of layering to the golden case. Each more or less unique with their own character as per the whims of each jeweller. Although that’s not to say there weren’t also the occasional conventional design.
The absolute scarcity of these pieces and the lack of a manufacturer’s stamp inside the caseback means that there is almost no market for them, which – in my opinion – is nothing short of a tragedy.
Image credit: James Dowling
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