29th May 1953, around 11:30 a kiwi (bird known for its lack of flying abilities) ironically found himself on top of the world as New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first ever to scale Mt. Everest. The climb of 29,035 ft isn’t a small feat (pardon the pun). It was a historic moment, one which aspired generations to replicate the same and gave birth to one of the iconic watches!!
Yes, you read it right. A year ago, in 1952, Rolex introduced the bubble-back 6098 and 6150 which had white dials and leaf shaped hands. A year later Rolex added the ref. 6298 and 6350. The 6298 had white dial and applied indices whereas the ref. 6350 had black dials with Arabic 3-6-9 markers. Mind you the original watches still featured the leaf hands and were replaced with the Mercedes hands far later!!
The Original watch worn by Edmund Hillary
Rolex was one of the sponsors for the year 1953, as at that time Nepalese government gave permission for summit attempts only once a per year. The watch was not exactly a gift to Edmund Hillary as he was asked to wear the watch during the summit and to return it back so that Rolex could test it and observe the effects of the summit on the watch!! Sadly no one knows what experiment was done on the watch and one could catch a glimpse of the watch at the Beyer Watch and Clock Museum in Zurich.
After the comprehensive tests Rolex printed the word “explorer” on the dial and the legendary line of watches was born!!
The Enigmatic Pen 