Around 1932, Rudolf Wäckerlin, a Swiss-born rum merchant living in Jamaica, travelled regularly by train through Switzerland trying to sell rum for his company, Rum Basel - more popularly known under the name Coruba. On one of these many train trips through Switzerland, Mr. Wäckerlin happened to be seated across from a business man named Hans Wilsdorf, who was also travelling through Switzerland trying to sell Rolex watches. Hans Wilsdorf was able to convince Rudolf Wäckerlin to take a couple of his Rolex watches back to Jamaica and try to sell them there. 

 

So said, so done. The Rolex watches were sold, more were ordered and the business began. Although Rolex already belonged to the pioneers in watch-making even at that time, they were not yet so robust and were often brought back for repairs. By now, it was no longer possible to do business with both the watches and the rum at the same time and so another business was opened and bore the name Swiss Stores. 

 

By 1958 Swiss Stores had established itself as the finest jewellery and watch store in Jamaica, which at that time, and until its independence in 1962, was still part of the British Empire. In 1958 Swiss Stores opened Jamaica's first fully air-conditioned store, in the face of strong criticism that a store with a closed storefront would never work. Swiss Stores was, however, a pioneer, and it did work to this day's...