Rolex and Tudor Watches Only Meant for North America

Nowadays, Rolex offers the same lineup of watches across the world. There are no regional exclusives or variations beyond localized Day-Date languages, and the Eastern Arabic numerals seen on some platinum Day-Date 40’s and Daytonas. Rolex’s marketing is a well-oiled worldwide machine with strong, coherent product lines to work with. That wasn’t always the case!

Rolex’s marketing was always strong, but their ascendance to the #1 spot in luxury watch sales wasn’t a foregone conclusion. Rolex had to throw a lot of ideas at the wall to see what stuck, and they didn’t start to outsell Omega until 1970 or so.

Let’s take a look at some of Rolex and Tudor’s past offerings that were only meant for the North American market.

The Old Days: Cased by the Jeweler

Until the 1930’s, it was common for watch dials to display the name of the jeweler rather than the company that made the watch. And the jeweler was often the one to put the movement, dial and hands into a case. Such was presumably the case with this 1920’s Ryrie cocktail watch shown below, sporting a Rolex movement and a case made by American Watch Co. in Toronto. Ryrie was a Toronto jeweler who later got bought out by Birks, which remains an authorized Rolex dealer to this day.

The “Canadian Rolex”

What is a Canadian Rolex?

It’s impossible to explain what a “Canadian Rolex” is without mentioning Gruen, a once-successful American watch brand. Although Rolex now makes almost every part of their watches in-house, they used to assemble watches sourced piecemeal from various vendors (as was standard in the industry then). Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf’s favorite movement manufacturer was Aegler SA in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland. He loved their Rebberg and Hunter movements and “by 1920 Rolex was Aegler’s largest customer” according to David Boettcher.

Eventually Gruen was buying all of the Aegler movements that Rolex didn’t buy, and apparently they had an agreement: Gruen would only sell Aegler-based watches in the US, and Rolex would only sell Aegler-based watches outside the US. That’s why it took so long for Rolex to wholeheartedly enter the US, and from 1938-1949 or so they seemingly used Canada as a test market for a line of manual-wind watches with movements from Fabrique d’Horlogerie de Fontainemelon (FHF) instead of Aegler. These are what collectors call “Canadian Rolexes,” despite the fact that they are, naturally, still Swiss (except for some of the cases).

Canadian Rolex Components

Some Canadian Rolexes were given Oyster cases, and Oyster cases have always been made in Switzerland. But plenty of non-Oyster Rolex/Tudors were sold with third-party cases. Rolex’s use of English Dennison cases is well-known, and they also used New York-made cases from companies like Pioneer, ID, and DiVincenzo & Arienti. Complete watches were often taxed more heavily than incomplete ones, and it’s unsurprising that Wilsdorf would be savvy about tariffs given his background in importing-exporting.

Almost all Canadian Rolexes, which were largely sold to Canadian soldiers preparing for WW2, were powered by Fontainemelon FHF30 movements, which Rolex called “caliber 59” (and sometimes “caliber 65”) when used in their watches. It was widely believed that all Canadian Rolexes of the 1940’s had FHF30 movements, but there are exceptions: the fine folks at vintage-watches-collection.com found an example of a Wellington with original Canadian paperwork and a “gleaming example of a 10.5 ligne Hunter movement” inside.

The Wellington, with its observatory certification and relatively large 32mm diameter, is one of the most appealing Canadian Rolexes. It was often sold simply branded as “Observatory,” or sometimes as a “Douglas” or “Campbell” as seen in this Canadian Rolex catalog from 1949 (scanned by Alcan). It came in its own special clamshell case.

Other Canadian Rolex models, pictured below, include:

• Corvette
• Skyrocket
• Seaforth,
• Majestic
• Victory

Ref. 3478 is one of the most common Oyster-cased “Canadian Rolexes,” and it illustrates just how haphazard Rolex’s branding was at the time. That model was labeled at least 12 different ways.

It’s worth noting that not all 3478 variants were strictly exclusive to Canada. The standalone Oyster brand (essentially a precursor to Tudor as Rolex’s cheaper sister brand) was sold in other British Commonwealth markets like Singapore too.

Canadian Rolexes often have interesting features like 24-hour dials, but their collectability has always been held back by their size–they’re almost all 30mm or less. If you don’t mind small watches, they’re a great way to enter the world of vintage Rolex without breaking the bank.

Related: Does Watch Size Really Matter?

Canadian Tudors

There were “Canadian Tudors” in the 1940’s too, also with caliber 59/65 movements.

Rolex Tudors

In some cases, “Rolex” and “Tudor” were both on the dial. Usually, watches that say “Rolex Tudor” are repainted Tudors with “Rolex” improperly added later, but legit Canadian “Rolex Tudor” watches do exist. Keep in mind this was before the Tudor brand was really rolling. 

Eaton 1/4 Century Club

Eaton’s was an important department store in the 20th century, sometimes described as “the Sears of Canada.” Rolex apparently had a strong, special relationship with Eaton’s. From at least the 1930’s until 1966, Eaton’s awarded its employees with Rolex-made watches for reaching 25 years of service. Instead of “Rolex,” they said “Eaton’s” on the dial and the hour markers spelled “1/4 Century Club.”

Solar Aqua

“Solar” was Eaton’s own in-house watch brand. From roughly 1938-1960, Eaton’s ordered watches from Rolex white-labeled as “Solar Aqua.” Note that watches branded simply “Solar” without the word “Aqua” have nothing to do with Rolex. Eaton’s sourced watches from many companies over the years and “Aqua” was a Rolex trademark, which had seemingly been used as an alternative to “Oyster” branding in earlier years. There were even some crowns that said “Aqua Patent” instead of “Oyster Patent” but those are impossibly rare.

Even some of Rolex’s primitive waterproof watches from 1922 (pre-Oyster hermetic watches that were usually branded “Rolex Submarine”) were sold at Eaton’s under the “Solar Aqua” moniker. Same for the first Rolex Oyster models. From the late 1930’s to the mid-1940’s, Solar Aquas were like other small caliber 59-powered Canadian Rolex/Tudors. Then from the late 1940’s until about 1960, after Tudor had become an established brand, Solar Aquas were equivalent to 34mm Tudor models of the time (like ref. 4463, 7808, 7933 and 7960). Automatic ones have “Solar-Aqua” written on the rotor, with the Tudor logo on the caseback.

Neptune / Buick

The “Neptune Waterproof” and “Buick Waterproof” are probably the most mysterious Rolex-made watches that only seem to show up in North America. They have Oyster crowns and cases, and little seems to be known about them. 

Abercrombie & Fitch

The earliest examples of Rolex products sold in the US seem to be mid-1930’s Oysters co-signed by Abercrombie & Fitch, once a high-end sporting goods/hunting store. Due to the Gruen agreement, they all had FHF30 movements. These watches were not a big success. Abercrombie & Fitch ended up partnering with Heuer, and Rolex wouldn’t make a full-fledged attempt to enter the US market until about 15 years later.

Rolex might have maintained some sort of relationship with Abercrombie & Fitch because the Commando (ref. 6429) was exclusively sold to civilians by A&F in 1972 (for the whopping price tag of $108.75). This entry-level model (which is now extremely collectible) had previously only been sold on US military bases in 1969.

Turtle (Zell Bros.)

The Zell Bros. were jewelers from Oregon who were apparently impressed with Oyster watches they had seen in Canada. Around 1940, they imported Oysters that were specially branded just for them. Most said “Turtle Timer” but some said “Turtle Royal,” “Turtle Perpetual,” “Turtle Lipton” or “Turtle De Luxe.” The Zell Bros. thus became the second retailer to sell Rolex-made products in the US.

Note that Rolex didn’t supply these Turtle watches for very long. Turtle was not Rolex’s trademark, and by the mid-1940’s Zell’s Turtles were being made by Movado instead.

The Brooklyn Pie Pan Rolex

This dressy 33mm 14k gold Rolex with a pie pan dial was only sold in the US. This particular model was often given as an employee service award, with “25 Years Service” and company names frequently inscribed on the casebacks. A fair number even had company logos on the dial, like the Texas Instruments example shown here.

Its case was made by DiVincenzo & Arienti in Brooklyn, NY. D&A also sold cases to Omega, so you can find very similar Omegas from this era.

Dress Explorers

The Air-King-Date, ref. 5700 and 5701, is often thought of as a “Canadian Rolex” and indeed most examples seem to turn up in Canada. It was made from 1958-1988, and like the standalone Oyster brand of the 1930’s-1940’s, it was also sold in some other places like Singapore. However, some of them were branded “Explorer Date” and it’s likely those were truly exclusive to Canada. Same goes for the 5501 and 5590 Explorers. These old 34mm Explorers without Mercedes hands are sometimes called “dress Explorers.”

It’s worth mentioning that the Rolex King-of-Wings (ref. 4125) was once suspected to be exclusive to Canada, but Hodinkee found one with a Bucherer’s stamp on the dial, and Bucherer was not operating in Canada at that time.

Zephyr

The Zephyr, a 34mm Oyster Perpetual model with a distinctive notched gold bezel and crosshair dial, first appeared in 1956 as ref. 6582.

“Zephyr” is not merely a collector nickname; Rolex themselves used this term in their advertising:

Zephyrs were available in two-tone or solid gold. Later models include ref. 1008 and 1009, as well as 1038 and 1512 (which had blocky bezel markings rather than pointy). It seems the Zephyr was only marketed in the US

Leave us a comment if you can think of any other Rolex/Tudor watches sold only in North America!

Special thanks to Derek Dier, David Boettcher, vintage-watches-collection.com and the Edmonton Watch Club.

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