19th Century Switzerland

The watch trade was dependent of raw material, especially raw movements called ‘ébauches’. These raw pieces for continental watches were mostly fabricated in the French part of Switzerland were protestant French watchmakers settled during the prosecution of protestants in France. The hot-spots of watchmaking are today the same as they were back then: Le Locle, Bienne, La Chaux-de-Fonds, La Vallée de Joux and Geneva. The now Swiss watchmakers perfectioned the manufacture and countered the huge demand for raw material by optimising the production by introducing machine operated mass production towards the end of the 19^th century. As they also had the skills and the knowledge they slowly took over the production of complete watches. Therefore, starting from mid 19^th century the watch production in Switzerland litterally exploded crushing the production in France. The Swiss managed to produce a high amount of average quality watches, sometimes usurpating the names of very famous French or English watchmakers. A custom already adopted during the 17^th – and 18^th centuries. Most Swiss watches of the period have no signature at all.

Slowly the Swiss gained a very good reputation from their excellent precision to cost ratio. At the beginning of the 20^th century all parties involved in the two World Wars ordered precision time pieces and watches for their soldiers in Switzerland. They got replaced by cheaper ‘home made’ watches, which still retained Swiss movements. Still today mechanical Swiss watches are regarded as the best and most reputed. Many names known from the 18^th -and 19^th century still exist or reappeared. Breguet for instance is still in business taking much care of the enormous heritage left by the founder of the brand back in 1775. Since 1983 also the quartz watch trade, once firmly in Japanese hands, is highly dominated by the Swiss brand ‘Swatch’.