LIP

By Bruce Shawkey

LIP watch company has quite an interesting history. The roots of the company go all the way back to 

1867 when Emmanuel Isaac Lipmann (right, born 1844, died 1913), established a company selling watchmaking supplies. 

 In October 1868, he married Caroline Geismar. They had three children: Ernest, the technician, Camille, who assumed the head of a new factory, and Jenny, less involved, was in charge of administration for a while. 

In 1904, Ernest Lipmann sought the help Pierre and Marie Curie to find a material that could be read in the dark. Thus, Lip created the first phosphorescent dial.

Frederic "Fred" Samuel Lipmann (right), grandson of Emmanuel and son of Ernest was born in Besançon on November 2, 1905. After a chaotic schooling in Paris, his father put him in the watchmaking school of Besançon. After completing his military service (mandatory in France at that time), he left for the United StLIP ates in 1928 on a study tour where he visited the watchmaking factories and assembly plants of the Harley Davidson and Indian motorcycles. This trip and his passion for motorsport would influence his vision and methods. In August 1931 he joined the family company.

The T18

Produced from 1935 until the end of the 1950s, a LIP T18 was gifted to Sir Winston Churchill (1948) by the French government in recognition of his services France during the Second World War. The classic T18 is still produced today.

Under Fred's direction, LIP became the first watch manufacturer in France. 1954 marks the peak of the company, with 1,500 employees, 300,000 watches a year. Under the leadership of Fred Lip, the company invented the first electric watch, called "Electronic. which is actually part electric, part mechanical. It is presented on March 19th, 1952, a full five years before Hamilton introduced its electric watch. The watch is seen below, pulled from a consumer ad.

Here are some more pictures of  LIP watches:

We jump to the quartz crisis of the 1970s. Fred Lipmann bucks the tide and continues to produce mechanical watches. Always at the forefront, Fred Lip embarks on the adventure of design with Prince François De Baschmakoff. Some designs are shown below:

Next up is the Mythic, maintaining the brand's values: technical and avant-garde.

Next, we'll look at some LIP watches and advertisements through the decades.

T18                                                                                                                                        

Now, here are some vintage advertisements for LIP:

Here is another photo of Frederic "Fred" Samuel Lipmann.

Additional images: