The first Rolex Oyster to swim the English Channel is up for sale.
There are wristwatches that are more than just watches. Like the Rolex Oyster that will be auctioned by Sotheby’s at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Geneva on November 9, 2025. Because this watch is also a piece of history. It is the first waterproof wristwatch made famous by British swimmer Mercedes Gleitze (1900-1981), who wore it during her legendary Victory Swim in 1927, becoming the first British woman to swim the English Channel. This sporting event also marked the birth of modern sports sponsorship: Mercedes Gleitze became the first Rolex brand ambassador, inaugurating the collaboration between a brand and a celebrity.
The 1927 Vindication Swim marked a turning point for Rolex. From that point on, Rolex aligned itself with the pursuits of adventurers, athletes, and professionals operating in the planet’s most challenging environments. Gleitze’s crossing of the English Channel nearly a century ago laid the foundation for what would become a legacy of instrument watches designed for real-world performance. The Oyster was instrumental in the transition from pocket watches to wristwatches, and the Mercedes Gleitze watch played a major role in this transition, making it one of the most significant wristwatches still in private hands.
Sam Hines, Sotheby’s Worldwide Chairman, Watches
The watch up for auction, estimated at approximately $1.2 million, was most likely made in late 1926, before the patent for the winding crown was obtained in early 1927 (the caseback bears the mention of the patent application). It was crafted from 9k yellow gold and is one of the few pre-patent Rolex Oyster watches ever to appear on the market. It is also, by far, the most significant watch in the brand’s history.
History
After her legendary swim, Mercedes Gleitze wore only her original Oyster watch, despite Rolex’s offers to wear other models. Gleitze preferred Rolex to keep her Oyster companion. The Mercedes Gleitze watch was the star of Rolex’s celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the Oyster model in 1976, which included an exhibition at the Greenwich Observatory and the announcement of the Rolex Award for Enterprise, which has remained a central point of the brand’s legacy ever since. Rolex has continued to honor Gleitze’s enormous contribution to the development of its brand throughout her life and beyond, recalling her achievements and her connection to Rolex in communicating the brand’s legacy to this day.
You’ll be pleased to know that the Rolex Oyster I took with me on my English Channel crossing proved to be a reliable and precise companion, despite being subjected to a complete immersion for 10 hours and 24 minutes in seawater at a temperature no higher than 14°C, and often as low as 10°C. This is not to mention the constant turbulence it must have endured. Not even the rapid transition to the high temperature of the boat’s cabin when I was pulled from the water seemed to affect its regularity. The journalist was amazed, and I, of course, am thrilled.
Mercedes Gleitze
(October 25, 1927, excerpt from a handwritten letter to Rolex after her revenge swim)
It took Gleitze five years and nine attempts (including her Vindication Swim) to break the British record, and over a decade for Rolex to create a reliable, durable, and practical wristwatch that was also waterproof, shockproof, and dustproof.
The Birth of the Oyster
Hans Wilsdorf, born in Germany and living in London, co-founded Wilsdorf & Davis with his brother-in-law Alfred Davis in 1905. He had been obsessed with creating a waterproof, durable, and practical wristwatch to replace pocket watches since the early 1910s. When they officially registered the Rolex trademark in 1915, the couple focused their efforts on developing wristwatches and began training their case and movement craftsmen to experiment with hermetically sealed cases, special winding crowns, and precise movements suitable for wristwatch use. At the time, hermetically sealed watches with screw-down covers and bezels already existed, but they were not suitable for everyday, portable use.
Between 1922 and 1925, Rolex filed and acquired a series of patents for new waterproof case and crown systems, but a key missing element was a design that would allow the crown to be easily screwed securely to the case, creating a watertight seal. Wilsdorf found and purchased patents from Swiss inventors Paul Perregaux and Georges Peret in 1925 for a screw-down crown system, which he technically improved by adding a friction mechanism combined with a completely sealed case. In 1926, Rolex brought together all these innovations in the Rolex Oyster, the first practical waterproof wristwatch with a hermetically sealed case combined with an easy-to-use screw-down crown, for which it filed a patent application in October of that year.
Revenge in the Water
When it came to publicizing the watch, Wilsdorf seized the opportunity to enlist the support of Mercedes Gleitze, whom he knew well for her swimming records and numerous attempts to cross the English Channel, which were constantly reported in the national press. She was of German origin, like Wilsdorf, although she was a British citizen by virtue of her birth in Brighton. Their shared cultural and linguistic heritage would help create an immediate affinity between the two, beyond their mutual recognition of the pioneering spirit that had driven them both to success.
Mercedes Gleitze, an intelligent, multilingual secretary and typist who worked in central London, developed a passion for swimming at an early age in Brighton, then in London, where she began to gain recognition for swimming increasingly long distances of the Thames. Her first attempt to swim the English Channel occurred in August 1922, a feat only achieved by men at the time (British captain Matthew Webb had already done it in 1875, in nearly 22 hours).
The first successful swim by a woman, Gertrude Ederle, was on August 6, 1926, a record-breaking 14 hours and 39 minutes, beating all previous men’s times. American Olympic swimmer Gertrude Ederle, like Gleitze, was born in New York to German parents. Ederle’s astonishing feat would propel Gleitze to become the first British woman to achieve the feat. Ederle had won by crossing the English Channel from France, rather than the traditional start on the English coast, so Gleitze changed strategy and began her subsequent swims (including the Vindication Swim) from Cap Gris-Nez, near Calais, France.
The Sporting Event
Her crossing on October 7, 1927, was a success, completed in 15 hours and 15 minutes, but the legitimacy of the feat was called into question three days later when open-water swimmer Mona McLennan (also known as Dorothy Logan) claimed to have won. Although McLennan admitted to the press that her claim was a hoax, on October 17, Gleitze had already agreed to defend her title with another crossing on Friday, October 21. For this crossing, conditions had worsened and were very unfavorable, forcing Gleitze to abandon the crossing after 10 hours and 24 minutes.
Logan’s hoax, combined with Gleitze’s celebrity, caused the press to call the Vindication Swim a sporting event of national importance. This prompted Wilsdorf to contact Gleitze and ask her to wear the watch, which she did, tied around her neck with a ribbon. The Gleitze-Rolex deal was arranged and subsequently managed by the newly formed ST Garland Advertising Service, which would merge with Saatchi & Saatchi several decades later, becoming part of one of the world’s most influential advertising agencies. The Vindication Swim was a remarkable event, with boats following Gleitze’s swim and members of the press. A small flotilla of friends, family, and musicians was also present to help Gleitze stay alert in the icy, choppy waters, a testament to Gleitze’s remarkable endurance. The event was so significant that the Daily Mail chartered a plane to take aerial photographs of the swim, which they published on the front page the following day.
