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50 free Rolex trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Rolex trivia quiz covers the world's most famous watchmaker from a London import business in 1905 to the crown on a million wrists a year. The easy questions are ones any watch fan could answer: the founder, the city where Rolex is based today, the diving watch James Bond wore, the racing chronograph named after a Florida beach, and the actor whose own Daytona set an auction record. The harder end is for collectors and horology nerds: why the name Rolex was chosen, the swimmer who wore an Oyster across the English Channel, the Perpetual rotor of 1931, the airline that asked for a dual-time watch, the model built for CERN scientists, the watch strapped outside the bathyscaphe Trieste in 1960, the helium valve on the Sea-Dweller, the steel grade Rolex switched to in 1985, and the foundation that has owned the company since 1960. Tudor, Datejust, Day-Date, Explorer, Milgauss and the Rolex 24 at Daytona get questions too. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for the company, its founder and its models before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our luxury brands, James Bond and Switzerland quizzes next.
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Q 01In which city was the company that became Rolex founded in 1905?
London
Wilsdorf and Davis imported Swiss movements and put them in English-made cases.
Q 02In which country has Rolex been based since 1919?
Switzerland
The company moved there from England in 1919.
Q 03In which year was the Rolex trademark registered?
1908
Wilsdorf also opened an office in La Chaux-de-Fonds that year.
Q 04In which German region was Hans Wilsdorf born?
Bavaria
His hometown was Kulmbach.
Q 05What relation was co-founder Alfred Davis to Hans Wilsdorf?
Brother-in-law
Early watches were hallmarked W&D inside the caseback.
Q 06Why did Wilsdorf think Rolex was a good name, apart from its brevity?
It sounded like a watch being wound
He wanted a name pronounceable in any language and short enough to fit on a dial.
Q 07Why did Rolex move from England to Geneva in 1919?
Heavy post-war taxes on luxury imports
High export duties on silver and gold cases also hurt.
Q 08What name did Rolex give its 1926 waterproof and dustproof case?
Oyster
Rolex displayed the watches submerged in aquariums in shop windows.
Q 09Which swimmer wore a Rolex on a necklace while swimming the English Channel in 1927?
Mercedes Gleitze
Rolex bought a full-page front-page ad in the Daily Mail every day for a month to celebrate.
Q 10On which attempt did the Rolex-wearing swimmer become the first British woman to cross the Channel?
Eighth
She was also the first person known to swim the Straits of Gibraltar.
Q 11What did Rolex patent in 1931, adding the word Perpetual to its watches?
A self-winding rotor
The semi-circular plate relies on gravity to swing freely.
Q 12For which country's underwater demolition teams did Rolex make diving watches from 1935 to 1945?
Italy
They were distributed through the Florence retailer G. Panerai & Figlio.
Q 13To whom did Wilsdorf offer watches during World War II, payment due after the war?
Allied prisoners of war
More than 3,000 British officers received them through the Red Cross.
Q 21What was the Day-Date of 1956 the first watch to display?
The day of the week in full
A US president would soon make it famous, and Rolex named its bracelet accordingly.
Q 22Which US president was the first to wear a gold Day-Date?
Johnson
Rolex had already been calling the bracelet the President bracelet since 1957.
Q 23Which airline asked Rolex to develop the dual-time GMT-Master in 1955?
Pan Am
Crews needed local time and Greenwich Mean Time, then aviation's international standard.
Which 1953 achievement was the Rolex Explorer launched to celebrate?
Q 14Who has owned Rolex SA since 1960?
The Hans Wilsdorf Foundation
Wilsdorf placed all his shares in the trust after his wife's death in 1944.
Q 15Which brand did Wilsdorf conceive as a lower-priced sister to Rolex?
Tudor
Early models paired ETA movements with Rolex-quality cases and bracelets.
Q 16Roughly how many watches did Rolex sell in 2023?
1,240,000
Analysts put its 2024 revenue around CHF 10.5 billion, about a third of the luxury watch market.
Q 17Which steel grade has Rolex used since 1985, unlike most Swiss makers' 316L?
904L
It resists corrosion better and polishes to a brighter lustre, but is softer and scratches more easily.
Q 18What does Rolex call its ceramic bezel, first used on the GMT-Master II in 2005?
Cerachrom
Unlike aluminium bezels, the colour does not fade under UV light.
Q 19Which Rolex bracelet was named for the company's 40th anniversary in 1945?
Jubilee
It debuted with the original Datejust, reference 4467.
Q 20What was the Datejust of 1945 the first self-winding chronometer wristwatch to do?
Show the date in a window
The date change became instantaneous from 1955.
The ascent of Everest
Ironically, Edmund Hillary wore a Smiths watch, not a Rolex, to the summit.
Q 25What extra feature distinguishes the Explorer II for cavers and polar explorers?
An orange 24-hour hand
Underground or at the poles, day cannot be told from night.
Q 26The Submariner of 1953 was the first watch waterproof to what depth?
100 m
Blancpain's Fifty Fathoms, also from 1953, was certified to 94.5 metres.
Q 27Which Submariner reference did Sean Connery wear in his first four Bond films?
6538
Timothy Dalton was the last Bond to wear a Rolex, in 1989's Licence to Kill.
Q 28Since GoldenEye in 1995, James Bond has worn which brand instead of Rolex?
Omega
Timothy Dalton was the last Bond to wear a Submariner, in Licence to Kill.
Q 29Roughly how many Submariners did Rolex say it produced between 1953 and 2020?
4,000,000
Current models are all rated to 300 metres.
Q 30Which French diving company has issued the Sea-Dweller to its divers since 1977?
Comex
Its divers had earlier received specially marked Submariners.