Favre Leuba

 By Bruce Shawkey

Found this interesting ad in the Sept./Oct. 1954 issue of Swiss Horological Journal for Favre Leuba watches:

Here's a watch from 1953

Favre-Leuba’s roots go all the way back to a rather storybook beginning of 1737, when Abraham Favre opened a small watchmakers workshop in Le Locle, thereby staking a claim to be one of the oldest watch brands in existence. Here are some images of vintage Favre Leuba watches:

Here is an interesting altimeter watch from the mid-1960s:

Here is an article on Favre Leuba found in a 1951 edition of Europa Star magazine:

The "Compagnie des Montres Favre-Leuba" is a striking example of tradition in watchmaking and of progressive development of a craftsman's workshop into a modern manufacturing and sales organization. Through steady progress and thanks to an unabating need for improvement, this family enterprise grew into the watch company of today. As early as the end of the XVIIIth century, the family was settled in Loce as watchmakers. But in 1915, a small factory was created and took the name of Favre-Leuba. Fritz Favre-Leuba, the promoter of the enterprise, secures the renown of his articles in the Eastern and the Western hemispheres, crosses the seas and travels in the most trying climates of the Tropics, in both South America and India. In the latter country, the firm has gained its best footing and the branches of Bombay and Calcutta have today a staff of about 250 employees. The great schism that has divided this territory, at one time unified, into two parts: the Indian Union on the one hand and Pakistan on the other, has brought forth the Karachi branch. The Rangoon office is one more link in the oriental network, whereas the heart itself of the sterling area was also brought into the organization by establishing a branch in London. The Compagnie des montres Favre-Lueba S.A. in Geneva is now the center of a group of firms which are all filled with its own life and spirit. The reputation gained by the allied firms in London, Bombay, Calcutta, Karachi and Rangoon is the result of the efforts of both the Geneva managers and their delegates overseas. The former are keeping in constant touch with the very sources of artistic creation and watch craftsmanship, whereas the latter are maintaining, under sometimes very trying climatic conditions, a narrow contact with the populations of these big countries which have obtained a status of independence and are now on their way to great political and economic achievements, in spite of the obstacles which both the world situation and climatic calamities put in their way. The task of the managers of Favre-Leuba's overseas branches is to keep up among the people of these countries the desire to buy, not just any watch, but a Favre-Leuba watch. This means The task of the managers of Favre-Leuba's overseas branches is to keep up among the people of these countries the desire to buy, not just any watch, but a Favre-Leuba watch. This means that not only a business relationship, but first and foremost an atmosphere of sympathy, has to be created. This has been achieved and the reputation of Favre-Leuba articles has reached beyond the frontiers of India, Pakistan and Burma as far as the Near-East and Africa, where outposts have been in existence for sonic time and tend to develop and multiply. In the Western hemisphere as well, valuable contacts have been established. The manifold activities of the "Compagnie des Montres Favre-Leuba S.A." include the production of popular-priced wrist watches that are characteristic for the traditional types sought after on the Indian market as well as those shown opposite, which arc two out of the models presented at the world-famous Geneva exhibition Montres et Bijoux. Tradition and progress, the two forces that will mould the future! 

Here's an article on the Favre Leuba altimeter watch:

More Favre Leuba watches: