Horology history and the oldest watch brands

[Dave2302]

Would be nice to have the key... even if it's closed now.

LOL, I haven't seen Rolex "G" as he was known back then for a long while, he was also a Car collector who gave me a lot of work back then, for which I never charged. A very helpful contact back in the good old dayz.
I think I'll take a drive / look / ask around when we are in the royal bog hole of Englandshire in a few months time

 

[trailboss99]

One single hand and yet still set to 10:10

 

[Dave2302]

One single hand and yet still set to 10:10

This just reminded me of a mate in England who actually does collect gen Omegas and a few others, and last time I saw him on our pre Christmas tour he actually asked me why advertised Watches always read 10 past 10

 

[Seeds]

My choice is the Smooth Bezel.

 

[IvorH]

Thank for the time and effort put into the Breguet history, absolutely fascinating.

I do believe that Rolex still has a repair facility in Kent, I remember my homologise mentioning it recently.

 

[IvorH]

Sorry, that should have said horologis!

 

[Feefo]

Some notes on the oldest watch brands – Breguet 1775
(Part 2/2)

It's been a while, better get this finished and move on. This second part will focus on the brand/company history rather than the man.

Breguet can be considered the world's first watch celebrity. No other before him and many years after him had as widespread notoriety as he did. From a brand perspective, a"Breguet" watch was worth a premium over other watches. For this reason Breguet watches can claim to be the first brand that was counterfeited.

We've seen how the Brown family took over the company after Breguet's death and the loss of interest of his descendants.
Under the Browns, Breguet vegetated under the radar until Parisian jewellers Jacques and Pierre Chaumet bought and tried to revive it.

The Chaumet is a brand with an interesting history itself. This company also changed hands many times. Suffice it to say, Chaumet's predecessors started their activities as jewellers in 1780 in Place Vendome, Paris, and their clientele was the royal court'S nobility. They managed to withstand the French Revolution later becoming to the Napoleonic Empire. They were not as lucky after the 1848 revolution, so they opened another shop in London were they flourished again boasting clients lie Queen Victoria. Chaumet was successful in being constantly on top of then contemporary design and artistic trends. World War II provided for a break of their activities but they promptly restarted in 1944. If previously modern art movements were the primary source of inspiration for the jewellers, in the post war era fashion became the reference point. Chaumet's jewels adapted to complement the design of Chritian Dior's and Yves Saint Laurent's creations.

On the wave of their success, Chaumet decided to expand in the horology sector by buying a renowned watch brand like Breguet and (re-) positioning it in the high-end segment.

With success comes... greed. Headed by the brothers Jacques and Pierre Chaumet, the company filed for bankruptcy in 1987 with liabilities of 1.4 billion francs, eight times the annual turnover, in particular due to heavy losses in their diamond purchasing and resale business after the drop in prices worldwide. The two brothers were convicted of illegal banking activities for having opened accounts that promised high interest on the principal.
After their fraudulent bankruptcy, Chaumet was bought in 1987 by Investcorp, a leading Bahrain-based investment bank. The company lost 10 million francs in 1995–1997, but became profitable again in 1998, with a revenue of 280 million francs. In 1991, Investcorp created the Groupe Horloger Breguet (GHB). The Breguet Group consists of four subsidiaries: Montres Breguet SA, Breguet SA, Valdar SA and Nouvelle Lemania SA (which Breguet Group acquired in 1992). Breguet was eventually bought by the Swatch Group in 1999.

Although Breguet watches have become renowned in the last decades for their hand-engraved, silver plate over gold dials and cases with reeded edges and for their development of complicated inhouse movements, in the watch world they are often criticized for the lack of inventiveness, for capitalizing on the tradition which is exploited to the last bits instead of creating something original at the level of Breguet's historical achievements. In a nutshell, they're a money machine for a selected few and do not foster or promote real innovation.

 

[IvorH]

Superb! My favourite watchmaker of all time, I love the classic simplicity of the white enamel dials and also the complexity of the guilloche dials are a brilliant contrast. Thanks for the post and the photographs Feefo…a great read.

 

[philsterdude]

Awesome!!! I love this. I need to study more.

 

[Feefo]

Some notes on the oldest watch brands – Perrelet 1777

Perrelet is named after Abraham Louis Perrelet (1729 - 1826), horologist and "inventor". The date 1777 is sort of made up and must be taken just as reference, since not much of Perrelet's origin is documented. We'll get to that.

Born as a son of farmers and carpenters, he was apparently gifted with a certain degree of inventiveness and mechanical skills so allegedly went into watchmaking apprenticeship at the age of 20. It looks like his horology master was no good, so according to myth he went on his own and taught himself horology.

According to the Perrelet website, with 24 Abraham Louis moved to Paris to study with his renowned namesake Breguet, who "soon discovered the unique talent of this young watchmaker". I smell marketing here because I couldn't confirm this early contact between the two Abraham Louises with other common internet sources. Be that as it may, Perrelet was a gifted watchmaker, he invented and developed a number of new functions to optimize timepieces. He was the first in Le Locle to manufacture clocks with a cylinder gear and duplex escapement as well as with a perpetual calendar and equation of time. He created the ebauche and perfected the gear train, pinions, gears, escapement and winding mechanism. Among other things, he also invented tools and machines for the production and assembly of watches.
Foremost however, Perrelet is credited with the invention of the first self-winding automatic mechanism. Not without controversy though, since Hubert Sarton apparently also developed the mechanism around the same time.

In 1777, Professor Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, one of the founders of the Société des Arts de Genève, went on a research trip to Neuchâtel to visit watch factories and watchmakers. He informed the committee that a certain Mr. Perrelet, a watchmaker in Le Locle, had constructed a watch that wound itself in the pocket by the wearer's steps and then did not stop for eight days. Professor de Saussure's personal notes read: "I have just come from Mr. Perrelet, inventor of a watch that winds itself solely by the movements of its wearer...". As with almost every invention, there were initial difficulties, de Saussure continues: “He (Perrelet) had to redesign the first watch so that the winding mechanism did not overload the spring and thereby damage it. For example, a man's watch was broken due to his violent movements as he ran to the post office. He developed a mechanical separation of the winding mechanism and spring, a project that turned out to be anything but easy, but was solved to satisfaction." But that is not proof that Perrelet was the inventor. In fact his watch probably used a weight pivoting at the side of the movement. The first drawing and accurate description of an automatic watch with a central rotor was created in 1778 by the watchmaker Hubert Sarton and that design is attributed to him. In any case, it's proof of Perrelet's notable work. Breguet did frequent Perrelet at some point allegedly acquiring one of his watches and trying to improve the automatic mechanism.



Abraham Louis wasn't the last Perrelet doing watchmaking, his grandson Louis-Frédéric Perrelet (1781–1852) was trained by his grandfather and went into business in Paris later becoming Horologist to the court. Louis-Frédéric invented marine watches with measuring instruments and a split-second precision chronograph. Other successors remained in the watch business but the dedication slowly dwindled and died.



Until 1993, the rights of the Perrelet name were held by their direct descendants, who still live in the Neuchâtel Jura today. In 1993, the Ticino industrialist Flavio Audemars bought the naming rights. In 1995, the Perrelet brand returned to the watch world with a reinterpretation of the automatic movement drive: equipped with a double rotor with a flywheel visible on the dial side, Perrelet tried to be successful with a single product strategy.

Moving forward the brand had to fight against overpowering competitors. Over the next decade, Perrelet suffered financial difficulties and was relaunched one more time in 2004 by the Festina Group. Acquired in 2004 by Miguel Rodriguez of the Festina Group, appointed Marc Bernhardt as CEO of Perrelet in 2007, and under his direction, the company released a few highly regarded watches. These included watches with retrograde, jumping hour, and double-rotor complications. Introduction of these unique complications was met with resounding success compared to the initial 1995 revival.

Perrelets develops and produces movements and caliber entirely within its workshops. Previously Perrelet had always used ETA base movements for its timepieces. When the company was acquired in 2004, owner of the H5 group / Festina Group, Miguel Rodriguez, purchased the STM holding group, giving Perrelet access to the movement manufacturer Soprod. Perrelet can also take advantage of relationships with its sister companies in the Group, such as MM Ineltec, MHVJ and Astral, which produce various components for watch movements.

Perrelet's watches today place themselves in the sub 10k range. They show a notable lack of originality and univocal style, mostly capitalizing on their double rotor thing. Well, I don't like them. Alongside fairly simple designs reminiscent of Daniel Wellington and lazy notes such as "open heart dials", there's some fugly badass watches I keep asking myself "who buys this stuff"?

 

[deaded]

@Feefo, thank you SO much for sharing all this info as well as the great pictures. This thread is absolutely fascinating! I'm going to need to read this a few times.
You ought to turn your posts into a book.

 

[Feefo]

Some notes on the oldest watch brands – Chaumet 1780

Next in chronological order is a brand which is known for its jewellery rather than its watches. As a matter of fact, Chaumet started as a jeweller and we already talked about it in the Breguet post, as they acquired the brand in 1970.
They started producing watches in the 19th century, joining forces with brands as Patek Philippe or JLC to produce them.

Founder of the brand is one Marie-Étienne Nitot (1750–1809) who set up workshop in Place Vendôme, Paris in 1780 after an apprenticeship with Aubert, then jeweller to Queen Marie-Antoinette. Nitot took over the aristocratic clientele who remained loyal to him until the French Revolution in 1789. But after this, the Nitot jewellery house really took off, becoming the official jeweller of Napoleon I in 1804. He and later his son François Regnault Nitot made renowned jewellery for the Empire and its nobility.
François Regnault took over on his father's death in 1809 and continued his activity until the fall of the Empire in 1815. Napoleon's exile caused Nitot, a fervent royalist, to withdraw from the jewellery house, selling the business to his foreman, Jean Baptiste Fossin (1786–1848).

Assisted by his son Jules (1808–1869), Fossin elegantly interpreted romantic jewellery pieces inspired by the arts of the Italian Renaissance and the French 18th century, but also naturalist-themed pieces. The elite of the period were won over and the family of Louis-Philippe, King of France from 1830 to 1848, as well as the Duchesse de Berry, succeeded Napoleon on the list of famous clients. After the French revolution of 1848, the activity of Maison Fossin slowed significantly in France, leading to the establishment of a boutique in London with a workshop entrusted to Jean-Valentin Morel (1794–1860) assisted by his son Prosper (born in 1825). They attracted a prestigious clientele which included Queen Victoria, who granted Jean-Valentin Morel a royal warrant.

In 1885, Joseph Chaumet (1852–1928) married Marie, the daughter of Prosper Morel, thus taking control of the House. The Renaissance style was still used, in particular for tiaras, very much in vogue at the time, which Chaumet would make one of its specialities; but Chaumet also drew inspiration from Japanese art, which was gaining popularity in jewellery design at the time, as well as the pointed arches of Islamic architecture.
Before fully embracing the Art Deco style, Chaumet was influenced by the Art Nouveau movement, creating jewelry with elaborate floral and nature-inspired motifs. Chaumet created a wide range of imaginative pieces, including decorative hair ornaments and accessories inspired by mythology, such as bat-shaped aigrettes and intricately carved combs. In 1907, the Maison moved to 12, Place Vendôme, turning the Hotel Baudard de Sainte-James into Chaumet’s iconic address.

Marcel Chaumet (1886–1964) succeeded his father Joseph in 1928, at the height of the Art Deco period. Jewellery was more geometric, following the 'boyish style' of the 1920s, becoming more feminine during the 1930s. Colours, materials and fine gems were imperative for jewellery. From the 1920s onwards, the renown of the jewellery house spread to the world of the arts and show business. In 1934, Maison Chaumet sponsored the establishment of the young jeweller Pierre Sterlé, who was already designing its jewellery. In the same year, the House closed, only to re-open at the end of the World War II.

In the wake of the post-war years, Chaumet stood out as a precursor, embodying the taste and creativity of the Parisian woman. Chaumet adapted the 'New Look' of the pioneers Christian Dior and Yves Saint Laurent, attracting the fashionable women of the time.

In 1958, the sons of Marcel Chaumet, Jacques and Pierre, were appointed executive directors of the House. They took over the Breguet brand in 1970. François Bodet, a Maison Chaumet executive, renewed the brand and positioned Breguet in the high-end watchmaking segment.

The 1970s were marked by originality and unconventional combinations, such as pairings of diamonds, coral and peridot mounted on yellow gold.

Eventually, the company went bankrupt for the reasons mentioned above in the Breguet (2/2) post. After belonging to the Investcorp investment group, the Maison was purchased by the LVMH Group in 1999.

Chaumet's watches are pieces of jewellery in the high luxury sector with prices starting at around 7000 € for the most basic quartz pieces to above 130k€ for iced-out pieces. The flying tourbillon watches probably touch the quarter of a million ceiling. Mechanically, they either use ETA movements or Hublot's CP12V-IX tourbillon caliber (Hublot is LVMH as well).