The oldest watchmaking school in Switzerland, L’École d’Horologerie de Genève, was first established in 1824 and headquartered in Petit-Lancy right outside of the city center of Geneva.

Rolex brought in its first class of watchmaking apprentices in 1984, but before that, research shows that the manufacture sometimes donated watches to watchmaking schools for future watchmakers to use as practice, much like other brands at the time. Interestingly, Rolex chose to donate their reference 19000 Oysterquartz Day-Date, powered by the quartz movement caliber 5035. Even more surprisingly, Rolex cased these donated watches in stainless steel unlike any other reference 19000. In all likelihood, the students at L’École d’Horologerie de Genève needed practice working on complicated quartz movements that were barreling into fashion at the time since the late 1970s, and steel was chosen for cost purposes.

School watches are highly sought after by collectors as a window into the past, or the incongruity of seeing the engraved name of a young watchmaker on the movement of an otherwise familiar reference. The present lot is the fourth appearance of a Rolex OysterQuartz school watch at auction, with the characteristic engraving “L’École d’Horologerie de Genève” on the caseback, a subtle wink of rarity to those who are in the know.