How a Forgotten Watch Set the Stage for Rolex’s Biggest Release of the Year

If Rolex is the ultimate symbol of prestige within watchmaking, quartz models exist at the opposite end of the spectrum. At least, that’s a perception common among many lay consumers and sophisticated, experienced collectors, to boot.

Though not without foundation, this assertion is far too reductive. Not only can quartz watches be every bit as refined as mechanical timepieces, Rolex of all brands once danced with the technology.

What’s more, its near-forgotten quartz collection even laid the visual groundwork for the new Land-Dweller, a model that debuted in 2025 at Watches and Wonders Geneva.

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The quartz race

Today, Rolex watches use traditional mechanics, deriving power from an unwinding spring rather than from batteries. Quartz watches, on the other hand, are powered by batteries.

Cheap to make — and even cheaper to maintain — quartz movements drive the majority of inexpensive watches in the world. They’re also easy to spot: a quartz watch’s seconds hand will tick every second, while a mechanical watch’s will sweep continuously (usually).

Rolex’s relationship with the technology dates back to the early ’60s, when it joined a group of 20 Swiss brands (the “CEH”) to develop a quartz wristwatch movement.

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Though beat to market by Seiko’s 1969 Quartz-Astron, the fruit of their labor was the Beta 21, a quartz movement found in watches by Omega, Patek Philippe and, yes, even Rolex, which put in in ref. 5100 — otherwise known as the “Texano.”

Those early quartz movements, however, were only the first generation of such calibers and left a lot of room for improvement. So Rolex eventually left the consortium to develop its own movement in 1972.

A new collection

For brands that were wholly invested in traditional mechanical watchmaking, the leap to develop and produce a battery-powered quartz movement was no insignificant undertaking.

In Rolex’s case, it took the brand five full years before its in-house quartz watch was ready for market. But by 1977, the officially named Oysterquartz was ready for prime time, operating at a frequency around four times that of the Seiko’s first Astron.

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It’s important to note that the Oysterquartz didn’t simply replace mechanical movements but rather formed a collection of its own, taking established Rolex elements and integrating them into a case design that would look fresh even today.

In fact, the 2025 Land-Dweller owes much of its design language to the Oysterquartz, even if the movement inside the watch tells a much different story.

Ahead of its time

Over the course of its 24-year run, the Oyseterquartz received many treatments by Rolex — including various bezel styles and dial elements like Roman numerals.

However, its visual through line was an integrated bracelet, as seen on the Genta-designed Nautilus and Royal Oak, not to mention the 2025 Land-Dweller from Rolex itself.

Rolex stopped producing its Oysterquartz around 2001, and it’s believed that the brand made around 25,000 of them over the course of two-dozen years.

Today, the watch is a largely overlooked part of Rolex lore. But in light of the new Land-Dweller, which recalls many of its outward traits, the collection takes on some new context in the history of the Crown.

It also posits that the Oysterquartz, like many admirable inventions throughout history, was simply too far ahead of its time to get the credit it deserved.

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