Stainless steel was not always popular because of the hardness of steel, it was far too hard to work with. Precious metals are softer and easier to work with, hence, Stainless Steel watches were not very popular before the 1800’s. As a result, stainless steel watches dating back to that era, are precious and fetch the highest price ever.

Stainless Steel is an Ideal Watchmaking Material

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I discovered this purely by accident. Stainless Steel was not used as a standard in the watch making industry due to how hard the metal is, and how much manual labor was required for fashioning watches from that metal  Essentially, Stainless Steel is iron with the excess carbon removed and other chemicals added. Hard is an understatemet! It was Rolex that paved the way.

Thanks to pioneers like Rolex, new tools and technical developments made steel a practical material for watchmaking. However, in the minds of people steel watches were not stylish enough for everyday wear. And, because of they were only worn for work purposes, it took time for steel watches to become trendy..Eventually, it came in broad demand and other companies jumped on the wave. Typically, Rolex was setting the pace.

Steel watches were seen as work wear,

Stainless steel watches are so common, affordable, and fashionable today that it can be baffling to recall that up until the 1960s, They were relatively rare, quite expensive, and considered to be about as stylish as a hardhat. Until the 1970s, the vast majority of steel watches were job-specific tools — anti-magnetic models for railroad workers and scientists, waterproof versions for divers and chronographs and GMTs for pilots.

The Transition

During and after WWII, the steel tool watch started a slow ascent from workwear to jetsetter fashion. Many WWII fighter pilots picked up Rolex Oysters during the war. And when these men went on to become commercial pilots, their steel Rollies came with them. Suddenly these tools were on the wrists of handsome men flashing comforting smiles and decked-out jetsetters boarding beautifully appointed mid-century planes. Those stylish passengers were exactly the folks Rolex was courting with 1945’s stainless steel Air-King, arguably the first tool watch overtly marketed as a status symbol.

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