By Bruce Shawkey
When I think of the name Luxor, I tend to think of the big casino just off the Las Vegas Strip. But of course being a horologist for the last 40 years or so, I also think of clocks, specifically table clocks from the '40s and '50s. I did not know that several companies tried to make a go of Luxor wristwatches over the decades, including Omega and Zenith.
None of them were particularly successful at it. First place would probably go to J. Harold Brunner (1907-1984) who registered the Luxor trademark (left) in 1940. We know almost nothing of Mr. Brunner. A search of Google turns up a lot of Brunner names (a common Swiss surname) but nothing on J.H. Brunner. The company, located in LeLocle, was most known for small clocks, pendulettes (small table clocks with fast-moving pendulums), alarm clocks. One of their novelty table clocks was not much larger (height and width) than an American quarter. They exhibited at Basel in 1940, 1950 and 1959.
For a brief time, they tried their hand at wrist watches. An ad from a 1950s Swiss Horological Journal (right)shows a "Brilux," model: A novelty watch with visible balance. I don't think the watch was a commercial success, because I have seen only a couple for sale or auction on the secondary market. The company more or less disappeared after the '60s.
Other Luxor trademark registrations appear on Mikrolisk.com, an online database of horological trademarks. Included are:
PW Ellis & Co. Import name; Toronto, Canada; founded in 1872;
Omega Watch Co. SA / Louis Brand & Frere Clockworks, cases, dials; Biel, Geneva and La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland; registered in January of 1893;
Selza Watch Co. SA / Victor Gisiger. Clocks, clock parts; Biel, Switzerland; registered in October of 1926;
Schramberg, Germany; registered in March of 1927 by a co-watch factories in Hamburg and America;
Zenith International SA Le Locle, Switzerland; registered in September of 1981; and
Candino Watch Co. SA Biel and Herbetswil, Switzerland; registered in September of 1986. (The company currently owns five watch brands: Festina, Lotus, Jaguar, Candino and Calypso.)
Of interest to me are the "Zenith years" when several models of chronograph and dive watch of good quality appeared on the market and fetch good money on today's vintage market. A few of those are seen below.
Today, Luxor watches are sold online via a website called getluxor.co (no "m"). The company bills itself as a “disruptive” supplier of “originally designed watches at radically fair prices” (typically under $100). Curiously, the name "Luxor" does not appear on any of its watch dials. Movements are exclusively quartz. I’ll let you decide how “originally designed” they are. (Personally, I think they are copycat designs of other more famous makers.) And though the watches look nice on their website, they have mostly been dismissed as "Chinese junk" by the online watch community.
So thus hangs the tale of Luxor watches. Though the name has a nice ring to it, it has never caught on in the world of watches. It is one of many “also-rans” in the watch world.
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L to R: visible balance watch; multi-calendar model; world time watch modeled after a Luxor table clock, automatic w/date. |
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L to R: dive watch; dive watch (Look familiar … Doxa Sub 300 look-alike perhaps?); Luxor (by Zenith) chronograph; Luxor (by Zenith) chronograph. |
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L to R: All Luxor by getluxor.co: Phantom, $79; Cheetah, $89; Bentley, $79; Excalibur, $79 |
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L to R: All Luxor by getluxor.co: Cadillac, $78; “The Gold Watch,” $79; Lige Classic Leather, $77. |
