The silver Rolex box.
An official promotional gift from Rolex: the "Ruysdael" box. What a true gem!
By AWCo on 15 October 2019
It’s not every day that we get the change to lay hands on something this awesome and that is not a vintage watch. A few weeks ago a trader from Paris we work with a lot, offered us this Rolex box. Without a doubt we bought it from him, initially to keep it in our private collection since this is such a rare Rolex item, but eventually, we find it something to offer to our customers more. Can’t have it all, can we?
There were some ambiguities about the origin and representation of this incredibly rare item. And, like always, we dove into history to find out what it is, what it’s used for and how many there are made. Truth be told, it was hard to find any detailed information.
It's the Rolex Headquarter Paris, located in the Avenue de Ruysdael.
The name of the box that, often due to ignorance, was called “Hotel Private”; which is the general name for a large county house. At the front of the box, you see a sort of country house building that seems to be the image of Rolex Headquarter Paris, located in the Avenue de Ruysdael.
It was an official promotional gift by Rolex and was to be given to close relations. To our knowledge, only 50 pieces are publicly known.
It’s handmade, with the dimensions of 9,5 x 6,0 x 6,0 cm and weighs about 200 grams. Originally it came in a ‘Rolex green’ cardboard box, that unfortunately is no longer part of ours anymore. The box seems to be used as a fancy cigarette box and was given in the period of 2000 – 2005.
Nice fact: Bill Clinton received this gift from Rolex during his visit in 2002. Read more about it in the post of GreenOysterRolex on Instagram that also includes some of the images taken of this event.
