Rolex founder Wilsdorf's unique vision was always ahead of its time. The First World War brought disaster to mankind, but it also became the best promoter of the popularization of wristwatches. Soldiers on the front line need accurate timepieces that are easy to read to synchronize time and conduct military operations accurately. For soldiers carrying heavy equipment and wearing heavy uniforms and coats, watches have inherent advantages that pocket watches cannot match.
Rolex, which specializes in watch manufacturing, quickly became one of the most important watch suppliers in the world. In 1926, Rolex achieved the most important breakthrough in the study of waterproof performance, inventing the so-called Oyster waterproof watch with a double-locked waterproof crown and officially registering it. In October 1927, Mercedes Gleitze, a famous British swimmer, crossed the English Channel wearing a Rolex Oyster waterproof watch. The Rolex Oyster became an instant hit as a "perfect watch that is waterproof, moisture-proof, heat-proof, cold-proof, shock-proof and dust-proof, defeating all the natural enemies of timers". It created what is hailed as "the greatest victory in the history of watchmaking technology" and created "a miracle that was always thought to be difficult to achieve". Since then, the Rolex Oyster watch has become a legendary classic, and also established Rolex's leading position in watch waterproof technology.
People at that time were very interested in the development of technology, science and materials, and humans had an almost infectious fascination with machinery, speed and movement. Like a miracle, the Wright brothers' airplane took to the sky in 1903. Speed and time have become a contemporary obsession, making humans obsessed with conquering higher limits. On the other hand, in addition to the desire for speed and power, as soon as the post-war thoughts were completely liberated in the 1920s, human beings began to explore and experiment with art and aesthetic concepts frantically. People's clothing, hairstyles and accessories have undergone amazing changes, and music, painting and architecture have also shown incredible creativity.
Straight lines and curves fully express the post-war geometric style and Art Deco trend, and watchmakers have also set off a wave of research on the shape and structure of watches. Breaking away from the round style of pocket watches and abandoning the round watch standard in the trenches of World War I, countless watch shapes have appeared. In addition to the most popular and fashionable rectangular watches, square, hexagonal, octagonal, barrel-shaped, oval, and even polygonal and triangular shapes are also common.
The Prince rectangular watch launched by Rolex in 1928 is an outstanding work that truly integrates the performance, aesthetics and structure of watches after Rolex made a breakthrough in the waterproof performance of the Oyster watch. When pocket watches were first developed, pocket watches with second hands were quite rare, and such pocket watches were almost always worn by medical and maritime personnel. In addition to the hour and minute dials, the Prince watch also has a large, separate second hand dial. Even other watches of the same era had a second hand display, but the dial was too small to allow for accurate timekeeping (some were even as small as 2mm). Therefore, Prince was loved by medical staff as a tool for calculating pulse as soon as it came out, and this is why the Prince watch was later called the "Doctor's Watch". Professionals who need to count to the second accurately, such as radio technicians and engineers, have also become fans of Prince watches. Gruen, an American company that has a cross-shareholding relationship with Rolex, also launched a Techni-Quadron watch similar to Prince a year later. It also uses a rectangular movement designed by Hermann Aegler. The biggest difference between this type of watch and other square watches is that the center point of its hour and minute dial is not located on the horizontal line of the crown head, but above it, which is quite distinctive.
The first model of Prince series watches was Prince Classic Ref. 1343, followed by Prince Brandcard Ref. 971. The characteristic of this model is that the outer side of the rectangular case is added with a significantly extended outer frame (the French word brancard means stretcher in English, and the Techni-Quadron style launched by Gruen at that time was the brancard style).
Unfortunately, on October 4, 1929, the stock market plummeted, and the global economy fell into a dark crisis known as the "Great Depression", and the Swiss watchmaking industry also faced an unprecedented harsh winter. Despite the harsh market environment, Rolex did not stop developing and experimenting with rectangular watches. It subsequently launched several models including the Railway Prince Ref. 1527, Prince Dauphine, H.S. Jumping Hour and Sporting Prince Jumping Hour. However, as popularity for square watches quickly waned, the Prince was discontinued around the mid-1940s.
The Prince Super Precision Aerodynamic Ref. 3361, launched in 1939, may be one of the last models in the Prince series. The central second hand and the uneven size of the case body show that even in a bad environment, Rolex continued to make new attempts in the shape of square watches, but ultimately failed to match the overall market trend. However, there are still many different opinions about the exact time when Prince was discontinued. It is believed that there was a Prince produced in 1952 on the market.
