Time - Watchmakers & their watches
A brief history...with some interesting facts thrown in
Omega | Patek Philippe | Piaget | Raymond Weil | Rolex
Rotary | Tissot | Ulysse Nardin | Vacheron Constantin
Jules Audemars (1815-1918) & Edouard Piguet (1853-1919) met in Le Brassus in the Swiss Jura Mountains in 1875. Said by many to the Rolls Royce of watches owned by many a Rolls Royce owner. The meeting of its two founders is reminiscent of the founding fathers of the famous car company meeting in a Manchester Hotel.
- Audemars was a maker of dial frames & Piguet was a finisher. Their trade-mark was first registered in December 1882. The 2 founders died within a year of each other.
- The company has always maintained a detailed register of every watch made & sold.
- The most famous collection is the La Grande Complication of which only 100 were made between 1915 and 1989, the Grande Sonnerie, the Perpétuelle Calendar Watch and the Skeleton watch.
- The Royal Oak was the first luxury wristwatch ever created in stainless steel. The watch is named after the hollow tree trunk in which King Charles II is said to have sought refuge.
Started around 1830 when the Baume family were making watches in the Jura near Berne. It as not until 1918 when a member of the family met Paul Mercier, a Genève jeweller of high repute.
- In 1964 Piget acquired the major shareholding in the company.
- In 1980 the Riviera sports watch par excellence made of gold and steel was first produced. To test its durability and precision, the watch was mounted on the wheel of a BMW M1 before the start of the Le Mans (which lies n the Prime Meridian) 24 hour race. The watch endured the speed, heat and weather and ran perfectly after the race.
- The Medicus watch, designed especially for doctors, it includes a pulse scale to test a patient's pulse.
Remo Bertolucci is a lucky Tuscan, brought up in Pisa, trained in electro-technical engineering. A parachuter of note When he was 14 he met his wife to be. Her father had bought a small watchmaking business in 1939 at Evilard near Biel. Bertolucci acquired Swiss nationality after marriage and took over the family firm which now bears his name.
The longest and most remarkable watchmaker in history. Imer Blancpain was christened on 13 May 1639 in the village of Villeret, beside the River Suze in the Swiss Jura valley of Erguel.
- Jehan-Jacques Blancpain (born 1693) great-grandson of Imer, started the family business, making ébauches and parts in 1735, according to the earliest records.
- In 1926 Blancpain made a prototype of the first wristwatch to have an automatic winding mechanism., powered by the wearer's movements.
- In 1970 the firm was acquired by SSIH (thence SMH) and now produces handmade classic watches which can be traced to an individual maker who works in the original family farmhouse.
Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747-1823) was one of the few whose innovatory genius has had a real impact on time. Both Napoléon and Wellington were consulting their Breguets at Waterloo!!! Other famous wearers include Dumas' Count of Monte Cristo, Phileas Fogg, the time conscious hero of Jules Verne's Around the world in Eighty Days.
- Since 1787 each Breguel watch is recorded with the name of the individual maker, the cost price, sale date and identity of the purchaser.
- Breguet produced the first automatic watch, the Perpétuelle in 1765.
- Today high quality, engine-tuned by hand, watches, often extra-flat, each with a unique production number.
Léon Breitling first opened a workshop in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1884, making pocket watches and chronographs. His son Gaston initiated the production of wrist-watches in 1914 for the military in the First World War.
- Often associated with flying since 1936 when Willy Breitling (Leon's grandson) launched a chronometer for instrument panels in aircraft cockpits. The firm has a long association with Boeing, Douglas and Lockheed. In 1952 the Navimeter, a superchronograph designed especially for pilots.
- In 1970 Breitling introduced the Breitling GMT, a chronograph with two hour hands (one for 12 hour system, one for 24 hours system). A year later the Breitling Unitime simultaneously shows time in all countries of the World. Ernest Schneider (qualified pilot) acquired the company in 1979. He has been very careful to preserve its tradition.
Cartier is one of the most famous brand names in the luxury goods marketing the world.
Louis-François Cartier had a friend Alberto Santos-Dumont (1873-1932), a famous balloonist and early aviator. When Santos-Dumont wanted a watch to attach t his wrist, instead of a chain, Cartier saw the opportunity that this would open up.
- Cartier maintains records of every watch they have ever sold.
Louis-Ulysse Chopard founded the firm owned by the Scheufele family. Chopard founded the firm in Sonvillier in the Swiss Jura Mountains. A major supplier to Swiss Railways in its early days. In 1920 the company moved to Genève.
- Making glamorous watches including the famous Happy Diamonds.
Founded only in 1955 yet has established a world-wide reputation for highly imaginative wristwatches. Rene Bannwart and his cousin Simone Ries started the company with her father Gaston, who had been operating a small watch company in La Chaux-de-Fonds since 1924.
- A notable dial is the Météorite range (1987-8) featuring slices of the largest meteorites ever to fall to earth. Corum bought of the 34 ton "Cape York" (in Greenland) to make only 999 dials.
Alfred Dunhill founded this highly successful company in London's St James in 1907.
- The Millennium watch range was launched in 1982.
Pierre-Alain Ebel, grandson of the original founder, Eugene, has turned this declining company around. In 1972 his father threatened to liquidate he ailing 60 year old business in La Chaux-des-Fonds. Pierre bought out the business and the growth has been meteoritic. The Beluga range of watches is worn by many famous sportsman. Other watch ranges are the Sports and Discovery.
Innovative Scandinavian silver design since 1904. Founder: Georg Jensen (1866-1935). Now owned by Royal Copenhagen of Denmark. Modern designs, worn by many famous artists of stage & screen. Watch models include the 321 and 347. Watches also made out of gold and steel. Examples can be found in Museum of Modern Art in New York and many other famous design museums around the globe.
Gérald Genta learned his trade in Geneva. Distinctive octagonal watches individually numbered. He has designed many classic watches for many of the other famous houses.
In 1880 Constant Girard designed and produced the very first production wristwatch. Intended for officers in the German navy. J.-F. Bautte founded Girard-Perregaux in 1791 and produced ultra-thin watches.
- In 1966 Girard-Perregaux produced the first high-frequency mechanical watch. In 1969 it produced the first mass-produced quartz watch. Watch ranges include the Equation.
- The second oldest Swiss watch manufacturer based in La Chaux-de-Fonds.
In 1880, 21 year old Robert Ingersoll & his brother, Charles set up a dollar-a-time mail order company. By 1892 the company launched a dollar-and-a-half Universal pocket watch (about a tenth of the price of contemporary watches).
- By 1895 the dollar watch, the Yankee, was created. In 1905 the founder sailed to England t launch the Crown for 5 shillings.
- After the Wall Street Crash of 1929 Ingersoll Limited was launched as a British public company.
- Famous watches include the Boy Scout watch.
Founded by Florentine Ariosto Jones (1841-1916), an American, in 1869. He set up the business in Schaffhausen on the banks of the Rhine in German-speaking north-east Switzerland. He had worked for the Howard Watch & Clock Company in Roxbury, Boston, MA.
- Aaron Lufkin Dennison (1812-1895) moved to Switzerland in 1865 after the American Civil War. In Zurich he set up a branch of Melrose Watch Company but it failed three years later. In January 1869 F.A. Jones moved to Switzerland and the pair started to produce watches for export to the USA.
- The company has undergone many changes and financial disasters.
- This century watches have been designed by Ferdinard Porsche.
- The Da Vinci chronograph with perceptual calendar and moonphase but should run until 2499!!
Founded by Antoine LeCoultre in 1833. 90 years later his grandson, David met Edmund Jaeger. In 1925 the companies merged but it wasn't until 1937 that they launched the famous brand.
- Famed for the smallness of things chronographical to push watch-making to its limits. The smallest mechanical movement, the smallest quartz movement, the smallest analog chronograph movement have been achieved by its impressive research developments.
- In the early 1900's it produced many components for other famous houses.
- Many famous heads-of-states and other dignitaries have been presented with their Atmos clock by the Swiss Government.
- The Millonometer was the first instrument capable of measuring accurately to one thousandth of a millimeter.
- Queen Elizabeth II owns a 2 Ligne watch, the smallest in the world. She wore it for her coronation in 1953.
- Other famous watches include the Reversos range.
- In 1953 the Futurematic was launched, the first fully automatic wristwatch.
Auguste Agassiz, a young merchant, moved to St Imier in Switzerland, in 1832. He operated what today would have been known as a virtual corporation using home-workers to create watches that he sold.
- In 1854 he handed responsibility of the business to his nephew, Ernest Francillon. He realised that outsourcing did not produce consistency of quality. He built a factory in Les Longines. It started producing chronographs in 1879. In 1912 the company produced the first automatic timekeeping device - the wire cutting system. From that day Longines has long been associated with time-keeping at major sporting events.
- Wristwatches have been produced since 1910. Famous range includes the Conquest with the Conquest GMT which with a rotating bezel can be adjusted to show the time in any time zone.
Mido
Movado
Omega
Patek Philippe
Piaget
Started in 1976 by Raymond Weil with Mme. Simone Bedat in the village of Les Brenets close to La Chaux-de-Fonds. Watches with highly creative designs.
Hans Wilsdorf, a bavarian orphaned at 12, at 24 decided to set-up his own watch-making business having worked in London and La Chaux-de-Fonds. Wisdorf & Davies as founded in 1905 in London. Concentrated on the wrist-watch in a era when the pocket watch was king. Originally ébauches where sourced in Switzerland and sold as 'wristlet' watches in the far outposts of the British Empire.
- The expanding bracelet started life in 1906. Wilsdorf wanted a short easily pronounceable and memorable name and came up with the name Rolex. It was not until 24 November 1927 that the world famous Oyster watch range was launched. The whole of the front page of the Daily Mail carried an advertisement to launch the product. Each Oyster watch bears the legend 'Superlative Chronometer Officially Certified' and is accompanied by the Rolex red seal. Watches are tested by the Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres (C.O.S.C.).
- A Rolex Oyster accompanied Sir Edmond Hillary to the summit of Everest in 1953. 25 years later Reinhold Messner conquered the same mountain without oxygen carrying the famous watch.
- One of the most sort after watches in the world.
- Its founder died in 1960.
Rotary
Tissot
In 1774 Ulysse's grandfather, Jean Leonard Nardin set up a small business making household stoves. In 1792
- Leonard Frederic was born and became the first watchmaker in the family. Ulysse Nardi was born in 1823 and set up the company in 1846. It quickly gained international recognition. It won the Prize Medal at the 1862 World's Fair. Ulysse's son, Paul David Nardin, took over the firm in 1876. Chronometers were sold to many captains of the high seas. The company later went into decline and was rescued by Rolf W. Schnyder. It is now the astronomical & mechanical wizard of watches. Heavy, expensive but beautifully crafted pieces of craftsmanship with planetary positions and even watches containing pieces of meteorite.
- Famous watches include the Astrolabium and the Planetarium Capernicus.
Vacheron Constantin
Omega | Patek Philippe | Piaget | Raymond Weil | Rolex
Rotary | Tissot | Ulysse Nardin | Vacheron Constantin
Are there any other makers you would like covered here?
Thank you for visiting!
Can't find what you're looking for?
Try our Contents Index page or our site Search Engine
Netscape Navigator 3features used on this site
developed this web-site & can develop yours
© 1996 - Greenwich2000" - Page last updated : October 07, 1996 19:59 GMT