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In 1926, Rolex’s founder, Hans Wilsdorf, invented the world’s first waterproof wristwatch. He called it the Oyster. The hermetically sealed Rolex Oyster watch featured a patented system that brought together a screw-down bezel, caseback and winding crown.

In 1931, Rolex unveiled the first self-winding system for a wristwatch equipped with a free rotor named the Perpetual rotor. The rotor oscillates freely in both directions thanks to the natural motions of the wearer’s wrist, thus constantly winding the watch. Therefore, Oyster Perpetual simply means an automatic water-resistant Rolex watch.

The combination of the waterproof Oyster case and the automatic Perpetual movement made way for the now-iconic Rolex Oyster Perpetual watches. The earliest versions of vintage Rolex Oyster Perpetual watches picked up the nickname “Bubbleback” due to their bulbous casebacks to accommodate the thick rotor.

Over the following decades, Rolex used the waterproof and automatic Oyster Perpetual as the basis of most of its watches, but added a variety of other functions and design touches to create entirely new models. The Oyster Perpetual Datejust featured a date window at 3 o’clock while the Oyster Perpetual Day-Date included both a date window and day window. In the 1950s, Rolex unveiled a slew of tool watches including the Oyster Perpetual Explorer for adventurers, the Oyster Perpetual Submariner for divers, the Oyster Perpetual GMT-Master for pilots and the Oyster Perpetual Milgauss for scientists.

By the late 1960s, Rolex released the first Submariner with a date window, complete with the text “Oyster Perpetual Date” on the dial. Modern Rolex sports watches with date windows, such as the Submariner Date, GMT-Master II, Explorer II, Yacht-Master, and Sea-Dweller will all have “Oyster Perpetual Date” on the dial. However, this is not to be confused with the Rolex Oyster Perpetual Date watch model, which is similar to the Datejust—the biggest difference being its smaller case size.

Although Rolex developed the Oyster Perpetual range into a vast assortment of famous watches equipped with various mechanical complications and design features, the brand never abandoned the Oyster Perpetual base model. In 2015, Rolex introduced the largest version yet with the Oyster Perpetual 39.