Inex had been founded back in 1952, when Bjarne's father, Henning Stæhr, designed the first Inex watch.
With a visionary feel for a good idea, Rasmussen and Stæhr travelled the world, visiting manufacturers of watchcases, cogwheels, accumulators and circuit cards - everything they would need to build a brand new kind of watch.
The duo became a trio through partnership with the Swedish company Watch Market, who provided complementary expertise on watches and shared their vision of Scandinavian design.
Selecting the finest components from the grand smorgasbord of the timekeeping world, they created a brand new watch with exquisite Scandinavian design: Inex of Scandinavia.
What Rasmussen, Stæhr and Watch Market succeeded in creating was a watch of high quality that stood for the best of Scandinavian design - function and innovation - and was much less expensive than the competition.
Their success was assured.
Today, Inex of Scandinavia stands for the classic values embodied in the words wiser times.
And Inex watches are still made the same way today as yesterday - taking components from the finest manufacturers.
We design watches for active people who want a timepiece that is absolutely trouble-free.
That's how we create and recreate - time after time - the success story that is Inex of Scandinavia.

The Ingersoll Watch Company grew out of a mail order business (R H Ingersoll & Bro) started in New York City in 1882 by 21-year-old Robert Hawley Ingersoll and his brother Charles Henry.
The company initially sold low-cost items such as rubber stamps.
The first watches were introduced into the catalogue in 1892, supplied by the Waterbury Clock Company.
In 1896 Ingersoll introduced the Yankee watch priced at $1.00.
It was cheaply mass produced from stamped parts and without jewels so that it would be affordable to everyone.
They were producing 8,000 per day by 1899, and started advertising that 10,000 dealers carried their "dollar watch."
By 1910, Waterbury Clock was producing 3,500,000 "dollar watches" per year for Ingersoll.
Over twenty years nearly forty million of these watches were sold, and Ingersoll coined the phrase "The watch that made the dollar famous!" Theodore Roosevelt mentioned that during his hunting trip in Africa he was described as "the man from the country where Ingersoll was produced."
In 1904 Ingersoll opened a store in London, England.
In 1905 Robert sailed to England and introduced the Crown pocket watch for 5 shillings, which was the same value as $1 at the time.
These were made by a British subsidiary, Ingersoll Ltd, initially assembled from imported parts, and later made entirely in their London factory.
These watches were made until the late 1920s, after the American parent company had collapsed.

Invicta was founded in 1837 in La Chaux-de-fonds, Switzerland by Raphael Picard, who had the radical notion that fine Swiss timepieces could be offered at modest prices.
For more than a century, the assiduous little company created manual and automatic winding timepieces of exceptional design and construction.
Like many Swiss names of its day, the brand all but disappeared during the quartz invasion of the early ‘70s.
In 1991, descendants of the Invicta family re-established the brand holding firm to the company’s founding principle.
Privately owned and operated, Invicta has been better able to ensure the absolute highest standard in each watch produced.
Active throughout every step of production, this hands-on approach is a predominately intrinsic aspect of the impressive current success of the brand.
With consistent enduring strides in invention, craftsmanship, and inspiration, the Invicta Watch Group has evolved into the fastest growing watch company in the business and has sparked a movement that is turning the balance of power in the watch industry.

La grande massa d'acqua fluttua fragorosa tra le alte rocce delle famose cascate del Reno.
Pochi chilometri prima, il Reno scorre ancora placidamente davanti alle finestre dell’atelier di IWC a Schaffhausen.
Qui, oltre 140 anni fa (1868), ebbe inizio la storia che continua ancora oggi, di una manifattura divenuta leggendaria.
Già all’età di 27 anni l'ingegnere e orologiaio americano Florentine Ariosto Jones (1841-1916) divenne vicedirettore e responsabile di produzione della E. Howard Watch and Clock Co. di Boston, allora una delle aziende orologiere leader negli Stati Uniti.
In un'epoca in cui la maggior parte delle persone tentava la fortuna a ovest, Jones si recò nella direzione opposta.
Attraversò l'Atlantico per raggiungere la Svizzera, dove i salari erano ancora relativamente bassi.
Il suo obiettivo era quello di unire le eccellenti maestranze svizzere alle moderne tecnologie produttive americane e al suo spirito pioneristico per produrre orologi di elevata qualità destinati al mercato USA. L’imprenditore non aveva però fatto i conti con lo scetticismo della popolazione locale, in particolare degli orologiai specializzati della regione ginevrina e delle isolate vallate della Svizzera occidentale che dal XVII° secolo erano abituati a lavorare a casa o in piccoli atelier, e non in moderne manifatture con produzione centralizzata, come invece immaginava F. A. Jones.
Fu allora che Jones incontrò un industriale di Schaffhausen di nome Heinrich Moser.
Schaffhausen già allora poteva vantare una lunga tradizione in campo orologiero. Infatti, già nel 1409 nel monastero di Rheinau, dieci chilometri scendendo lungo il Reno, era stato costruito il primo orologio meccanico menzionato in un documento, destinato alla chiesa di San Giovanni di Schaffhausen.
Qui, la corporazione degli orologiai esisteva sin dal 1583.
E qui nacque anche la famosa dinastia orologiera degli Habrecht che crearono per la cattedrale di Strasburgo uno dei più importanti orologi astronomici dell’epoca.
Ma sarebbe stato il progetto di Jones – produrre orologi di manifattura pregiati, in grande serie e con standard di precisione costanti – a porre le fondamenta della notorietà di cui gli orologi di Schaffhausen godranno in tutto il mondo.

In 1833, Antoine LeCoultre (1803–81) founded a small workshop in Le Sentier, Switzerland, for the manufacture of high-quality timepieces.
In 1844, he measured the micrometre (μm) for the first time and created the world's most precise measuring instrument, the millionometer, capable of measuring to thousandths of a millimetre.
In 1847, LeCoultre developed a system that eliminated the need for keys to rewind and set watches, using a push-piece that activated a lever to change from one function to another.
In 1851, he was awarded a gold medal for his work on timepiece precision and mechanization at the first Universal Exhibition in London.
Antoine's son, Elie LeCoultre, desired to control all stages of timepiece production, so in 1866 he transformed his workshop into a manufacture, allowing his employees to pool their expertise under one roof.
In 1870, LeCoultre began using mechanized processes to manufacture complicated timepiece movements.
Within 30 years, LeCoultre had created more than 350 different timepiece calibers, of which 128 were equipped with chronograph functions and 99 with repeater mechanisms.
From 1902 and for the next 30 years, LeCoultre produced most of the movement blanks for Patek Philippe of Geneva.
In 1903, Parisian Edmond Jaeger challenged Jacques-David LeCoultre, grandson of Antoine, to manufacture ultra-thin calibers of his design.
Out of their relationship emerged a collection of ultra-thin pocket watches, followed by others that eventually, in 1937, officially culminated in the Jaeger-LeCoultre brand.
In 1907, French jeweler Cartier, a client of Jaeger's, signed a contract with the Parisian watchmaker under which all Jaeger's movement designs for a period of 15 years would be exclusive to Cartier.
The movements were produced by LeCoultre.
Also in 1907, the LeCoultre Caliber 145 set the record for the thinnest movement at 1.38 mm.
JLC began manufacturing the Atmos clock in 1936 after purchasing the patent from Jean-Leon Reutter, who invented it in 1928.
The company was officially renamed Jaeger-LeCoultre in 1937.
In 1941, Jaeger-LeCoultre earned the highest distinction from the Neuchâtel Observatory for its tourbillon Caliber 170.
In 1982, the Jaeger-LeCoultre museum was established in Le Sentier.
In 2009, JLC produced the world's most complicated wristwatch, the Hybris Mechanica à Grande Sonnerie with 26 complications. (fonte Wikipedia)

Pierre Jaquet Droz was born in 1721 on a small farm (La Ferme de Sur le Pont) in La Chaux-de-Fonds.
He began to take a serious interest in clockmaking and precision mechanics under the tutelage of older relatives from the Brandt-di-Grieurin, Sandoz and Robert families. It proved to be a true revelation for him.
From 1738 to 1747, Pierre Jaquet Droz devoted himself entirely to clockmaking.
He produced a series of longcase (or "grandfather") clocks whose increasingly sophisticated movements outclassed anything that had been produced earlier.
His manual dexterity, meticulous nature and serious approach to his craft, as well as the reasoned application of mechanical principles, led him to add music and automata to his movements, which came rapidly to the attention of a wealthy and demanding clientele.
Firmly established in his profession, he married Marianne Sandoz in 1750.
Soon after the birth of his two children, Julie in 1751 and Henry-Louis in 1752, Pierre Jaquet Droz lost his wife and then his daughter in 1755.
He never remarried, devoting himself entirely to clockmaking.
In an encounter that would change the course of his life and prove decisive to his international career, he met George Keith, Lord Marischal, governor of the principality of Neuchâtel, who advised him to present his creations abroad, especially in Spain where he could help introduce him to the court.
With this support, Pierre Jaquet Droz, his father-in-law and a young hired hand named Jaques Gevril, built a special carriage designed to carry six clocks to Spain and left for Spain in 1758.
49 days later, they were received in Madrid by Don Jacinto Jovert, a Spanish nobleman.
After a wait of several months, Pierre Jaquet Droz presented his clocks to King Ferdinand VI of Spain.
The presentation was a triumph; the monarch and his court were dumbfounded at the sight of a clock that could strike on request without needing manual intervention.
A few days later, the clockmaker received 2,000 gold pistoles in payment for all of the timepieces that he had brought to Spain, all of which were purchased for the royal palaces of Madrid and Villaviciosa.
Upon his return to La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1759, the large sum of money brought back from Spain enabled Pierre Jaquet Droz to concentrate exclusively on making watches, clocks and automata destined to become famous.
He set to work, assisted by his son Henry-Louis and a neighbor's son, Jean-Frédéric Leschot, whom he took in after the boy's mother died and considered like his own son.
This was the beginning of a close and fruitful partnership.
From 1773 onward, Jaquet Droz and Leschot perfected and marketed increasingly sophisticated automata.
Their work culminated with the three humanoid automata: The Writer, The Draughtsman and The Musician, presented in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1774.
These three masterpieces, admired by connoisseurs from all over the world, consolidated the reputation of Pierre Jaquet Droz and the success of the business.
Encouraged by this success, the Jaquet Drozs took to the road to exhibit these fabulous creations.
They took them from La Chaux-de-Fonds to Geneva and then, in 1775, to Paris where they were presented to Louis XVI and his queen, Marie-Antoinette.
They were shown in the most prominent courts of Europe, with visits to London, the Low Countries and Flanders in 1780/1781 as well as northern France.
They returned to Paris in 1782 and 1783, and exhibited in Lyon in 1784.
The automata also travelled to the Russian court in Kazan and to Madrid.
1774, Pierre Jaquet Droz decided to set up a workshop in London, a hub for industry and trade, under the management of his son Henry-Louis.
Obliged to travel extensively, the latter was compelled to delegate some of his duties and entrusted management of the London operation to Jean-Frédéric Leschot.
One of Leschot's responsibilities was to oversee the business relationship with the prominent trading company James Cox London, whose agents in Canton opened up the Far Eastern market for the Jaquet Droz Company and for many years represented it in China, India and Japan.
In the heart of 18th-century Beijing, the emperor himself and the Mandarins at the Imperial Court collected masterpieces by Pierre Jaquet Droz.
Qianlong, the fifth emperor of the Qing Dinasty, was engrossed by his interest in European mechanical clocks and automata.
He set up his own national office with hundreds of employees to import and trade these watches and automata from Europe.
James Cox London worked closely with the Qing Dynasty on the shipment of many Jaquet Droz masterpieces from the London workshop to the Forbidden City.
It was the first clockmaking brand to be imported there and many Jaquet Droz automata and pocket watches are still carefully preserved in what is now known as the Palace Museum.
Orders continued to flow in from all over the world. Pierre Jaquet Droz set up a team of the best watchmakers to be found in the Neuchâtel Mountains.
Starting in 1783, management of the London operation, installed in the Bartlett's Building, was turned over to a new business partner, Henry Maillardet.
The Jaquet Drozs, father and son, supervised the work of a long manufacturing chain (clockmakers, chasers, jewelers, enamellers, painters and musicians) and handled administration and the commercial side of all of their businesses.
For some ten years, the company continued to expand.
It sold clocks, automata, watches and singing birds all over the world, especially in China.
But the harsh climate of La Chaux-de-Fonds and the insidious London fog was detrimental to Henry-Louis' precarious state of health.
In 1784, he decided to move to Geneva, finding its artistic and literary life to his taste. Jean-Frédéric Leschot soon joined him and they decided to open the city's first clockmaking manufacture, one year before Vacheron Constantin set up shop, simultaneously introducing the production of timekeepers with major complications.
The talent and interest shown by Henry-Louis Jaquet Droz and Jean-Frédéric Leschot in the civic life of Geneva was quickly noted and approved.
The City of Geneva presented both of them with the coveted Bourgeois d'Honneur Award, and welcomed their involvement in municipal activities.
Jaquet Droz was admitted to the newly reinstated Société des Arts, which was very active in the advancement of technical training.
He helped set up a factory-school in Geneva to make cadratures for repeater watches and developed many projects bearing on watchmaking technique and was an advocate for the professions associated with watchmaking.
Pierre Jaquet Droz moved into the house of a clockmaker named Dental, at the corner of rue Molard and rue du Rhône, which housed the workshops and his son's apartment.
In 1784, Pierre and Henry-Louis Jaquet Droz headed three production and profit centers: one in La Chaux-de-Fonds, a second in London as well as a third in Geneva dedicated to low-volume horological production.
After moving to Geneva, Jaquet Droz & Leschot specialized in the manufacture and export of luxury watches featuring automata, musical mechanisms or other complications, in the meantime developing their production of singing birds.
Sales were handled by agents in France for the most part, but also in London and Canton.
1788, the success and prosperity of Jaquet Droz & Leschot peaked, but this period was of short duration.
In 1790, drafts made on their principal correspondent in China came back unpaid and their principal client in London failed, putting the company in the red.
The partnership with Henry Maillardet had to be liquidated.
These misfortunes darkened Pierre Jaquet Droz's final years.
He left Geneva to live in Bienne, Switzerland, where he died in 1790.
His son died the following year during a trip to Naples with his wife.
He was only 39 years old.
Given the disastrous economic repercussions of the French Revolution in 1789 and the conflicts that arose as a result, the business, now headed by Jean-Frédéric Leschot, ran into serious financial difficulties.
He continued to make high-priced watches, snuffboxes and bird cages containing singing birds, but had to show great prudence: customers were notified that he now preferred to be paid cash on delivery and would no longer sell on faraway markets.
The Napoleonic Wars that pitted France against nearly every other nation of Europe put an end to prosperity for the nobility and well-to-do bourgeoisie.
The Continental Blockade decreed by Napoleon in 1806 killed off any remaining market for very luxurious objects and greatly inhibited trade with England.
For Jaquet Droz & Leschot, this was the end of a period of great creativity and prosperity.
Since the brand was acquired in 2000 by the Swatch Group, it has returned to its town of origin, La Chaux-de-Fonds and moved into its new Atelier de Haute Horlogerie in the summer of 2010.
The new premises, occupying 2,500 m², will provide further incentive to grow and succeed.
Like Jaquet Droz timepieces, they reflect consummate expertise and craftsmanship enriched by the distinctive spirit of the house.
Today, the brand is well equipped to respond to strong market demand and the aspirations of its clientele.
When Jaquet Droz invented the concept of the Grande Seconde in 1785, it introduced a new way of looking at time and space.
The path of the seconds hand would indicate the passage of Time with greater accuracy than in past centuries.
With this “Grande Seconde” dial, whose design is inspired by the number 8, scientific precision is no longer reserved for scholars, merchants, priests and kings.
Nearly two hundred years after its creation, this iconic model continues to reflect the same philosophical values, aesthetic identity and scientific rigor, demonstrating the timeless quality of Jaquet Droz design.
 Over the years, many different versions of the Grande Seconde have been presented, such as the Grande Seconde Enamel, Grande Seconde SW (Sports Watch), Grande Seconde Quantième, Grande Seconde Minute Repeater and Grande Seconde Circled.
These models illustrate the extraordinary mastery of our dialmakers and the infinite range of possibilities for personalizing a magnificent timepiece.

Jean d’Eve is a Swiss watch company founded in 1888 by Mr. Charles Barbezat.

The watches were first produced under the “Le Phare” brand name and were immediately recognized for their quality and innovation and received the highest awards at the Universal Exhibitions in Paris (in 1889 and 1900), Liege (in 1905) and at several other international and national exhibitions.

In 1905, Le Phare was so successful that the company, with now more than 200 employees, changed its name to “Manufacture d’Horlogerie Le Phare.”

In 1970, Le Phare was the second largest Swiss producer of chronographs.

The brand “Jean d’Eve” was launched in 1981 and gained immediate success with exclusive up-market models such as Sectora, Up-Side-Down and Blue Marlin.

In 1984, the name was joined with Le Phare and became “Le Phare Jean d’Eve S.A.”.

The “Sectora” series, famous worldwide for its exclusive double retrograde system, features a soft, rounded case design which perfectly expresses the outstanding craftsmanship and advanced technology involved.

The timepiece became a collectible with its pioneering design of a 150˚ sector watch case, thus creating a unique way of displaying time and adding a new dimension to the history of contemporary watch making.

By the late 80’s, the Jean d’Eve timepieces were being sold in nearly 50 countries.

On April 14, 1988, during the Basel Fair, to celebrate its 100th anniversary and give a tribute to the founder, Jean d’Eve proudly introduced the “Samara” watch, which was equipped with a newly developed, prolonged, power reserve system named Generator®.

With this watch Jean d’Eve revolutionized over 250 year of watch making history and obtained more than 20 international patents.

With continuous innovations, inventions and over 120 years experience in watch making, Jean d’Eve watch collections (including Samara 2, Felina, Sectora 2000, Airport Douglas, Up-Side-Down, Sectora Automatic, and Pacific II) have been selected as exhibits in the International Watch Museum located in La Chaux-de-Fonds to honor the technological savoir-faire and innovative capacity of the Jean d’Eve watchmakers.

Moreover, Jean d’Eve has developed a number of unique and patented watches such as Sectora, Quarta, Samara and Sectana.

The image of the brand “The artistic interpretation of time” has been successfully established in the international market.

Thanks to a dynamic management and continuous innovation and creative design, Sectora II Automatic and Luna were launched in 2006, perpetuating the prestige linked to power reserve technology and 150˚ sector watch case design, earning strong acclaims from both renowned watch critics and collectors.

In 2009, the Quarta Automatic was developed through overcoming a maze of technical challenges.

The creative time display blends aesthetic with mechanical wizardry into a new art of time keeping that matches the brand’s culture and heritage.

Technology on movement and craftsmanship on watch making, the quintessential expression of the brand, is echoed in the new “Tourbillon Classic” collection.

With refined design and a tourbillon movement, Jean d’Eve confirms yet again its dedication to innovation and its ability in leaving its indelible mark on horological history.h as Sectora, Up-Side-Down and Blue Marlin.

In 1984, the name was joined with Le Phare and became “Le Phare Jean d’Eve S.A.” (fonte Gevril group).

Josef Wyss, a young certified watchmaker born in 1914, founded JOWISSA in 1951.

He used his own name in combination with the official Swiss corporate registration “SA” (company) to name his brand JOWISSA.

Born and reared in the village of Bettlach in the canton of Solothurn he was impressed early on by the long tradition of watchmaking in his hometown.

Bettlach has deep roots in this craft going back to the 18th century.

As a consequence Josef Wyss decided in early 1940 to learn the profession of the watchmaker.

With growing experience and an ongoing passion to produce time pieces for the wrist he got motivated to start an own watch company.

His finances where tight, and the problems to get a government license to produce watches posed a real challenge.

He finally overcame both obstacles and started JOWISSA in 1951.

JOWISSA initially produced watches in the family home, located at Hasenmattstrasse 29.

Josef's wife Mathilde and their five Children were from the start important pillars in the daily activity of the company.

During the initial years the business flourished because of the busyness of the Wyss family.

This made it necessary to build a larger factory adjacent to the existing property.

After another 20 years JOWISSA's growth demanded again for a new headquarters, which was found at the present address Dorfstrasse 16.

In the meantime the children had grown into central roles of the company, which freed up Josef Wyss for his second passion, local politics.

He was elected Mayor for the township of Bettlach and served in this honorary capacity for 25 years.

His son Leander Wyss took over the management in 1980 and till today directs the company.

The Jürgensen family, a dynasty of Danish watchmakers spanning the 18th to the 20th centuries, must be counted amongst the world’s greatest creators of timepieces, with the members Urban and Jules taking pride of place.
Jürgen Jürgensen is the founder of this illustrious horological family; born in Copenhagen on the 24th December 1745, he would later leave Denmark, traveling to Le Locle and Paris to apprentice with the famous makers Houriet, Berthoud, Le Roy and Romilly.
Jürgen’s son, Urban Jürgensen (1776-1830), following the footsteps of his father and the traditions of the times, also left Denmark at a young age, apprenticing amongst others with Breguet in Paris and Arnold in England.
It was under Urban’s guidance, mastery and foresight that the Jürgensen atelier produced pocketwatches and precision timekeepers for navigation and astronomy that achieved international fame and recognition.
This resulted in the Danish King, Frederick VI, granting him a Royal Appointment to supply the Court with watches and the Danish Admiralty with chronometers.
Urban Jürgensen and his two sons, Jules-Frederik (1808-1877) and Louis Urban (1806-1867) continued the business as a family enterprise by founding Urban Jürgensen & Sønner.
Jules also studied in Switzerland and would end up moving to Le Locle permanently, whilst his brother Louis Urban remained in charge of the factory in Copenhagen.
This meant that the company had official establishments and manufacturing facilities in both Denmark and Switzerland; the Jürgensen watchmaking dynasty never gave up the strong and continuous connections between Denmark and Switzerland as long as they were in existence.
After the death of the last watchmaker in the family, Jacques Alfred Jürgensen, in 1912, the then surviving parts of the company in Copenhagen and Le Locle passed through several hands, continuing operations through the tumults of the early 20th century and onwards into the 21st.
The very fact that the company never once completely passed from the imagination and memory of the horological world is a testament to the high esteem and dedication the brand had built up through some 240 years both in Denmark and Switzerland.
In more recent memory, it is thanks to people like Peter Baumberger and Derek Pratt who steered the company forward with a vision for the future with concepts for new calibers to give the Urban Jürgensen & Sønner brand a clear foundation for the 21st century.
The present owner and CEO, Dr. Helmut Crott, a world-class connoisseur of watchmaking, continues this passion today.
The focus of the brand is to build upon the work of the founders through the in house design of new calibers exclusive to Urban Jürgensen & Sønner.
Each timepiece is the result of the highest horological expertise through the invaluable work of passionate professional craftsmen who are the precious continuators of an uninterrupted production since 1773.

Juvenia was founded in 1860 by Jacques Didisheim-Goldschmidt in Saint-Imier, Switzerland.

Shortly after he relocated to La Chaux-de-Fonds, expecting better opportunities. Jacques' son, Bernard, later succeeded his father.

In the 1880s, Juvenia produced one of the first ladies wristwatches.

In 1914, Juvenia manufactured, at the time, the smallest movement constructed on a single level.

Juvenia is known for its extraordinary, avant-garde, case designs, unusual time indications and architectural inspiration.

In 1988, Juvenia was acquired by Asia Commercial Holdings Ltd. (fonte Wikipedia)