Movado

 By Bruce Shawkey

To most collectors, "Movado" is synonymous with the Museum Watch, the iconic watch designed by Nathan George Horwitt and introduced to the public in 1947. In 1960, Horwitt’s original dial design with the single dot became the first watch dial ever to be accepted by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, into its permanent design collection. Up to that point, the watch had no particular model name. Now it became known as the "Museum Watch" and the rest, as they say, is history. It became so popular, that the "Museum Watch," with all its various models (chronograph, multi-date, etc.) eventually became just about the only motif Movado currently offers and all bear the signature dat.

Despite this, Movado has a rich history of producing many other kinds of innovative watches through the decades, to which we will now turn our attention.

Movado's roots go all the way back to 1881, when Achille Ditesheim (left), then just 19 years old, opened a factory in La Chaux-de-Fonds with a work force of six watch makers. Joined by two brothers, Isadore and Leopold, the company was known as "LAI Ditesheim," based on the initials of their first names.

This family's name of Ditesheim should not be confused with another famous family of DITISHEIM watchmakers. Note the slight difference in spelling. The most famous of whom was Paul Ditisheim, who sold high-grade (often chronometer-certified) watches. The families were probably related and they were certainly aware of each others' presence. But the companies are distinct from one another.

In 1890, the Observatory at Neuchatel awarded LAI Ditesheim six First Class Certificates. LAI Ditisheim watches were well on their way to establishing a solid reputation in the watch world.

In 1905, the company changed its name to "Movado," capitalizing on the Esperanto movement, which had several active circles in La Chaux-de-Fonds at that time.  Esperanto, invented in 1887 by Dr. Ludwig L. Zamenhof, was thought to become a universal world language. Of course, it never caught on, but the name "Movado," which translates to "always in motion," stuck.

In 1912, the company began going after the emerging wrist watch market in earnest by inventing the "Polyplan," (right) credited as the first movement built specifically for wrist watches. Prior to this, wrist watches were fitted with round pocket watch movements, which limited the case design. Building a slim, rectangular-shaped movement opened up possibilities for new shapes. This ingenious movement incorporated two end plates which slanted downward from the central plate, forming a sort of curved movement. Housed in a smooth curved case, the watch would then fit the curvature of the wrist. Some Polyplan watches are shown below.

 The Polyplan was expensive to produce and not a commercial success. Its relative scarcity, along with being a technical achievement, puts it in great demand among serious Movado enthusiasts.

Movado's next wrist watch, which was also kind of eccentric, was produced as the specter of war loomed in Europe. Pocket watches were no longer practical in this new style of warfare. There was a need for a watch that was functional, sturdy, and reliable. In 1914, Movado came up with a wrist watch whose crystal and dial were protected by cut outs on the bezel that allowed the time to be read. The design was quickly imitated by several Swiss and American makers. It is interesting to note that Movado's design incorporates the cutouts into the case. It is not a separate piece of metal that rests on top of the bezel, secured by claws or a loop-through band.
The inventor of the cutout case has been disputed by military watch collectors and historians. But Movado is often cited because between 1914 and 1921, the company introduced many different case designs for ladies', and gents' wrist watches. Many of the dials of watches of this period were marked "Chronometre Movado," but the Chronometre is not literal, i.e., they were not certified as chronometers by an independent testing agency. It was simply a name chosen by Movado.

The 1920s would also usher in another of Movado's great triumphs -- the Ermeto, or purse watch, introduced in 1926. I am not going into great detail on the Ermeto because it is not a watch built for the wrist. But it was heralded as another innovation by Movado and was copied by several other manufactures, including Tavannes, Tissot, and Jaeger-LeCoultre.

                 In 1935, Movado introduced its first water resistant watch, the "Acvatic" (below, left). A chronograph version of the Acvatic would soon appear, the Cronacvatic (below).     

Also in 1938, Movado introduced its first triple-calendar watch, the "Calendo-graf."  The date was indicated with a hand that looked like a sweep-second hand, while the day and month appeared in two windows contained on the dial.

The "Cronoplan" (left) appeared in 1937, a watch with two independently rotating bezels (one each for minutes and hours) that could measure elapsed time. A year later, the company introduced its first chronograph with two pusher buttons and a 60-minute register. Movado made single pusher wrist chronographs as early as 1910. A later version of their two-button chronograph contained another register recording up to 12 hours of elapsed time.

The 1940s and beyond ushered in many other innovations in style and mechanical innovations, and it is these more modern specimens that tend to be more accessible to collectors.  At this point, we’ll take a break and look at some of the ads and some of watches Movado produced during this time period. It’s interesting to note that Horwitt’s watch is not promoted during this time because the watch did not yet have a specific model name, nor did Movado realize how popular the watch would become.

Here are some Movado ads and watches through the decades:

Here's a Movado image from 1952:

Movado introduced the  "Celestograf" in 1948 (left) which featured an auxiliary second hand at 6:00 and a moonphase indicator.

It is during this period that Movado developed its first self-winding watch, the "Tempomatic" (1945). This watch, equipped with the caliber 220M movement, has a sectional hammer rotor and a sweep second hand.

The "Calendomatic" was introduced in 1946. Equipped with the Caliber 225M movement, it was the first automatic wrist watch with a calendar. 
Movado also supplied wrist watches to Cartier and Tiffany. Most were equipped with the venerable caliber 150MN (which had been around since 1917), but many of the watches had automatic movements as well.

During this same period, Movado produced complicated wrist watches with the rapid introduction of new calibers. Since Movado rarely purchased ebauches from other companies (but rather developed and produced them in house), Movado needed a further factory expansion. In 1944, Movado increased to 275 employees, and was one of the largest enterprises in the Canton of Neuchatel.

In 1948, the factory at Rue du Parc No. 117 in La Chaux-de Fonds was extended to house the production of the Tempomatic and Celestograf calibers, as well as the Astronic.

By this time (1944) Achille Ditesheim, the founder of the company and last surviving brother of the "founding fathers" passed away.

Incidentally, one of my major sources for this story is an article which originally appeared in a German trade magazine and was translated into English. The article makes no mention of Movado supplying military watches to the Axis powers during World War II. This seems to confirm what I suspected: That Movado made no (or at best very few) military-issue watches. It is certain that the company made none for the Germans (the Ditesheims were Jewish), and it appears they had no contracts with the Allies, either. If anyone has evidence to the contrary, let me know.

I mention this only as a caution to be wary of anyone selling "military" WWII Movado. While there may be many Movados out in the market that LOOK like Ordnance watches (i.e., stainless steel case, luminous dial and hands, and so forth), my best sources indicate that Movado made no military-issued WWII watches!

Post-War and the gaining popularity of the "Museum Watch”

One of the first post-war models Movado introduced was the "Astronic" (1950), with a 24-hour dial. A year later, the "Automatic 331" followed -- a remarkably thin caliber 115 self-winding movement with a height of just 4.45 mm. In cooperation with Peseux (an ebauche manufacturer), Movado redesigned Peseux's caliber 330 to increase the frequency of the balance wheel from 18,000 per hour to 21,600 beats per hour, thus improving the accuracy of this movement. This remarkable engineering feat of the Movado designers was an important step towards the development of Movado's 36,000 beat/hour calibers, which were introduced in the late 1960s and early '70s.

The turn of the decade to the 1960s was of course dominated by the Museum Watch, as mentioned earlier. We will now take a closer look since this is watch that, for better or worse, defines Movado today. Horwitt’s design (left) features a stark black dial with no markers, except for a round gold-tone dot at the 12 o'clock position, and straight gold-tone stick hands. All this is mounted in a simple classic round gold-tone case. The watch’s design, which focused on radical simplicity of form, was inspired by the Bauhaus movement, founded in Germany after the first World War, and led by Walter Gropius. In this genre, design is restricted to the essentials or, put another way, "less is more." In any event, Howitt retained ownership of the dial design until 1958.
    Between 1947 and 1958, Horwitt offered the design to about 15 different watch companies and was turned down. Finally, Movado purchased the rights to the design, and soon began promoting the watches.  Movado's gamble paid off, for the company soon realized it had a commercial success on its hands. As mentioned previously, the watch is still with us today despite changes in ownership of the brand (which we'll get to in a little while), redesign of the case, and the addition of a quartz movement.

Many versions of the Museum Watch have been produced over the years, including one where the date shows on a window inside the dot (right). This was certainly not in keeping with Horwitt's design, but was a concession to the public's wishes. There are also chronograph and multi-date watches that came later incorporating the Museum Watch design.

The El Primero

Watch companies had long been wanting to respond to the public’s demand for an automatic chronograph, but the expense held back development. By the 1960s, Zenith had partnered with Movado and began work on a prototype that they unveiled at a press conference in 1969. They called it the “El Primero,” to emphasize it was the first of its kind. It featured a central rotor and a date window between the 4:00 and 5:00 positions. The watch was a close tie with Heuer's "Autavia," which featured a micro-rotor instead of a central rotor. The El Primero dial featured a 30-minute register, a 12-hour register and constant seconds register. This 13-ligne size movement was designated the Caliber 3019PHC and has an overall height of just 6.5 mm, remarkably thin despite its complications and the central rotor. With a fast beat balance wheel of 36,000 beats/hour, 31 jewels, and the ball bearing rotor, it was the most advanced watch on the market at the time.

The name "El Primero" (the first), underscored the fact that it was the first watch of its kind. The El Primero was produced and marketed under both Zenith and Movado names, although I have not been able to find a Movado-branded example. It appears the company wanted Zenith to have the spotlight on the watch (left) hence, history tends to record Zenith as inventing the El Primero, but Movado was a principal developer (and bore part of the expense) as well.

A further refinement to the Caliber 3019PHF added a window each for the day of the week and the month, as well as a moonphase dial. Marketed in the 70s, cases with the 3019PHF and refined movements often had case designs traits which reflected the predominant taste of this period -- thick, heavy, barrel- and hexagon-shaped in steel or gold-plated which sometimes had twice the thickness they actually needed!

The El Primero would be Movado's last hurrah, at least as mechanical watches were concerned. It was during this time that electronic and quartz movements struck a crippling blow to the Swiss watch industry. Movado was not spared. The same year the El Primero was introduced (1969), Movado had formally affiliated with Zenith and Mondia. The descendants of the Ditesheim family relinquished its last partial control of the company. Two years later, in 1971, Movado moved to Le Locle where Zenith had been operating since its founding in 1865. The move demonstrated the strong position of Zenith within the partnership. A new factory was built which initially housed the production of the traditional mechanical movements, such as the caliber 3019PHC.

But the focus soon shifted to the production of quartz watches (chiefly the Museum Watch). In 1972, the company was purchased by the Chicago-based Zenith Radio Corporation and renamed "Zenith Time SA," an interesting acquisition since the only thing Zenith had in common with watches was the name! In 1978, a Swiss group of inventors bought the company back and named the company "Zenith Movado Le Locle SA."

But only five years later, in 1983, Zenith (the Watch brand, not the radio company) and Movado separated for good.  The Movado brand was acquired by an American conglomerate, the North American Watch Corporation, based in Lyndhurst, N.J. From 1978 to 1983, we find many variations and combinations of names on the dials, cases and movements of the watches. I had one signed "Movado" on the dial, but "Zenith" on the both the case and the movement.  The watch was made by Zenith, but signed Movado on the dial for greater sales appeal in the United States.

In 1983, Gedalio Grinberg bought Movado and made it the flagship brand of Movado Group, which designs, manufactures and distributes a number of brands, including Concord and Ebel. Some of Movado’s seemingly endless variations, all on the theme of Horwitt’s original creation back in 1947, are seen below. Grinberg, at just 15 years of age, sold his first clock in his native Cuba for $18. He came to the United States where he amassed an impressive fortune in the watch business. He died in November 2009 at age 77. Movado remains  as part of Movado Group.

After images of the current watches Movado watch are some watches through the decades that show how Movado was much more than just the Museum Watch.

1978

1978

Lemania

 By Bruce Shawkey

 Lemania has been called the greatest watch company in the world that you probably never heard of. Well, OK, you probably HAVE heard of them, but I'll bet you didn't know how big and important they were (and still are) in the watch world.

    That's because they only advertised their own branded watches from about 1945 to the late 1950s. Prior to this, and after this, they supplied ebauches (unsigned rough movements) to other watch companies which installed them in their own cases. These ebauches consisted mainly of chronographs, but also time-only movements. Lemania, the brand name, became briefly known to the public around 1945 and again in the '60s when they helped build the first automatic chronograph, and also sold their Caliber 321 manual wind movement that went into Omega's famous Speedmaster "Moon Watch." Then, Lemania once again faded into obscurity,  eventually acquired by Swatch Group in 1981, where their movements go into Swatch Group's various brands. As far as I'm aware, the Lemania name is not seen on any watches, which would account for why so many people are unfamiliar with the brand.

 Founded in 1884

Lemania was originally founded as "Lugrin SA" in 1884 by Alfred Lugrin (left) in the Swiss Canton of Vaud. The company name remained Lugrin SA until 1928 when Lugrin's son-in-law, Marius Meylan, registered the name "Lemania Watch Co." which  comes from "Lac Leman," a Francophile term for Lake Geneva.

Their specialty was complications, chronograph movements, long-running movements, repeaters and, yes, a few time-only movements. They sold these movements to other companies as mentioned earlier. By 1928, Lemania certainly could have come out of the shadows and sold watches bearing their own brand name, but this was not a good time to be spending the extra money necessary to mount such a campaign. The world was falling into the grip of the Great Depression. So the company stayed with being an ebauche supplier.

That changed toward the end of WW2 when they supplied an Ordnance watch (right) for the British armed forces that became part of the so-called “Dirty Dozen”. They also at that time began supplying branded civilian watches to meet the pent-up demand caused by war-time shortages and also continued supplying other companies with ebauches. That way Lemania would boost brand recognition and profit. This new approach can be seen in advertisements in the trade and consumer publications of the time (below).

 

This strategy worked for a while as we can see in watches from the era bearing the Lemania name (below).

Here are some additional images of Lemania watches through the decades:

1955

1955

But Lemania slipped back into obscurity with a few branded watches appearing now and then:

Then, Lemania supplied Omega with the manual wind Caliber 321 that went into the famous Speedmaster Professional. As most know, this is the watch that astronauts wore (and still wear) for manned space missions and eventually to the moon, earning the nickname "Moon Watch" and giving Lemania name recognition, at least among collectors. It is said this movement has the longest continuous production run of ANY watch, ever.

Around the same time, interest was growing in an automatic chronograph. No manufacturer wanted to bear the cost alone of designing and building such a movement. So Lemania joined several other manufacturers to design and build a movement that was eventually released in 1969 and was used (and still is) by several companies, including Heuer, Breitling, and Hamilton. Omega uses it too, but it didn't gain approval by NASA for space missions because the movement won't sufficiently wind itself in zero gravity. In any event, the automatic chronograph gave Lemania some added name recognition, at least among watch aficionados.

Lemania continued to supply signed Ordnance watches well into the ‘60s and ‘70s to armed forces of various countries, including Britain, Australia, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Russia, South Africa and Sweden.

As stated earlier, Lemania was acquired in 1981 by Nicolas Hayek, whose various purchases would eventually become Swatch Group. The brand name may have disappeared, but their movements live on in many of Swatch's brands.

Here is another article I wrote about Lemania:

When you talk about Lemania, you're talking about chronographs. Yes, they made some very nice branded time-only watches in the '50s and '60s. But from the beginning, they were selling their in-house chronograph movements to other companies who usurped the glory by putting their names on the dials ... Breguet, Vacheron, Breitling, and Patek Philippe, to name a few. But inside, it was Lemania doing all the work.

Lemania also enjoys the distinction of powering the Omega watches worn by Neil Armstrong and Edwin Eugene "Buzz" Aldrin Jr. when they became the first and second men to set foot on the moon as part NASA's Apollo 11 space mission. So let's take a closer look at this relatively unknown company (to the general public, at least) with a giant reputation in the watch community.

The company was founded in Le Sentier (Switzerland) as Lugrin SA in 1883 by Alfred Lugrin (1858-1920), a largely self-taught watchmaker who, from the beginning, specialized in making complicated watches (chronographs, repeaters, long-running movements, and erotic automaton). It is said that Lugrin honed his craft by working as a laborer at Antoine LeCoultre's factory in Le Sentier  (later Jaeger-LeCoultre). The company did not become Lemania until 1928, but more on this later.  Lugrin's reputation grew, and he received his first official recognition at exhibitions in Milan in 1906, and later in Bern in 1914.

Circa 1915 Lemania

As is the case with many watch companies, we don't know exactly when the first Lugrin movement found its way into a wrist watch case. The earliest wrist watch I can find appears circa 1915 (right), with unsigned dial, and housed in a Borgel case. No doubt it was cased and sold by a jeweler.

Upon Lugrin's death in 1920, his 

Early ad for Lemania

son-in-law Marius Meylan, took over the firm and in 1928 changed the brand name to Lemania Watch Co., reportedly named for Lake Geneva (Lac Leman in French). For reasons unknown, Meylan moved headquarters to L'Orient. An early ad (left) emphasizes that Lemania was a supplier of watch movements and parts (fournitures), not finished watches.

    It was not a good time to try and re-boot a watch company. With a worldwide depression looming, many watch companies consolidated, and Lemania joined forces with Omega (still a relatively small independent company at the time) and Tissot to form Société Suisse pour l'Industrie Horlogère, more commonly known as SSIH. Lemania continued to operate in the shadows, supplying most of the chronograph movements that Tissot and Omega would use for the next 40 years, in addition to supplying other companies mentioned earlier.

15TL (left) and 15CHT
(classicwatch.com used with permission)

Lemania prospered during WWII, supplying chronograph movements to both Allied and
German forces. The workhorse movements were arguably the Caliber 15TL, a 2-register, 2-button movement introduced back in 1930s, and the 15CHT, a sister movement to the 15TL that has a single pusher.

The 15CHT found service in a specialized Ordnance watch engraved “HS9” on the back, issued to the British Royal Navy between 1945 and 1950. HS stood for Hydrographic Survey, which involved mapping harbors and waterways. The 9 was its watch specification number which stood for chronograph. It is especially prized among today's chronograph and military watch collectors.

Lemania General Service Watch 

A general service Lemania (time only) supplied to British military, using their Caliber 27A movement, is also worthy of mention (right). It is one watch comprising the so-called "Dirty Dozen," a term coined by modern-day military watch collectors to denote all the general service watches commissioned by the British Ministry of Defense (MoD) from various suppliers during World War II. To collect all 12 is considered a Holy Grail achievement among vintage watch collectors. In case you have lived in a cave all your life, the "Dirty Dozen" refers to a classic 1960s WWII movie starring Lee Marvin.

Additional Lemania Calibers are found in other Ordnance watches, too (both during and after WWII), but I admit I am not a military watch expert, as this is a separate genre of watch collecting with collectors and historians more knowledgeable than myself. If this is your ballgame, I encourage you to read and join any number of Internet chat groups and websites devoted to military watches to avoid getting stung. This is a high stakes game, and it is also a minefield of "Frankenwatches" (cobbled together with often real but not necessarily correct parts and/or engraved with phony Ordnance markings) and outright forgeries.

CH27 C12, Omega 321

Of all the chronograph movements that Lemania made, none is more famous than the Caliber CH27 C12, rolled out in 1946. It was the built upon the CH27, introduced five years earlier in 1941. The CH27 C12 added a 12-hour counter to the 2-register CH27. If you haven't guessed already, it's the movement that Omega used (their Caliber 321) in the Omega Speedmaster Professional that accompanied NASA astronauts to the moon (left).

Post-WWII ads for Branded Lemania
(click to see bigger size) 

The 1950s were interesting times for Lemania. With pent-up demand for consumer goods brought on from WWII, Lemania decided to jump into its own branded watches, manual wind, automatics and chronographs. From what I've seen on the market, they were very well built watches. Advertisements (right) and watch images appear below (click on the small images to see them full size). 

Lemania branded watches 1950s-'60s

And Lemania continued to supply Ordnance watches (chronographs and time-only) to various countries, for the next 40 or so years. This last statement is a very broad brush stroke that covers what could be an entire book. So if this interests you, I again urge you to join an Internet chat group (or 2 or 3, or dozen!) to get more information before you spend big dollars and get stung.

In 1961, Lemania released the Caliber 1872, a manual-wind, 2-register chronograph that uses a different mechanism to control the chronograph functions called cam switching. In this system, a stack of various-shaped plates (cams) operate the assorted levers required to engage and disengage start, stop, and reset of the chronograph counters. Cams are simpler and less expensive to manufacture than the traditional column-wheel system.

A third, 12-hour counter, was added a couple of years later to make the Lemania Caliber 1873 which was also used in later Omega Speedmaster Professionals as the Omega Caliber 861.  A third Caliber, the Omega 1861, introduced in 1996, is just an 861 that has been rhodium plated. All other factors being equal, the 321 is the more desirable movement because it was first, and there were fewer of them made, though collectors say it is more complicated to service and maintain than the 861/1861.

Lemania then worked with Omega to develop a high-quality cam switching automatic chronograph, launching their Cal. 1340 in 1972. This was followed by the 1974 introduction of

Lemania Caliber 5100

the Lemania Cal. 5100 (right), which became a legendary workhorse of a movement. Made of stamped steel and containing a handful of non-friction plastic parts, it was designed to compete with emerging inexpensive movements from Seiko and others, and to be cheap to assemble and service. Watches with the 5100 looked great from the front, with chronograph minutes on the central axis along with chronograph seconds, giving watches using this movement a distinctive "four-handed" look. But from the back, the 5100 was kind of an “ugly ducking” of a movement, and thus not a good choice for display casebacks. But what it lacked in beauty it made up for in price and reliability. It found service in the popular Sinn Model 140 "Space Chronograph," Tutima (all shown below), and others.  Perhaps the most unusual Lemania 5100 watch is the Sinn EZM 1, with no subdials at all and the crown and pushers located on the left side of the dial

Sinn model 140 Space Chronograph, first automatic chronograph worn in space; Tutima TL Nato Chronograph; Sinn EZM 1, with crown and pushers on left side of dial. All three using the Lemania 5100. Extra crown on the Sinn 140 turns an inner bezel ring.

 

It’s a kind of cult classic among Sinn collectors. But with timing capability of only 1 minute, it’s a waste of a good chronograph movement if you ask me.

Quartz (Nouvelle) Lemania

Amid the turmoil of the quartz crises of the 1970s-'80s, SSIH closed the Lemania factory in 1980. In 1981, a group of investors bought the company from SSIH and resumed activities under the new name of Nouvelle Lemania, though “Lemania” appears by itself on watches from this era (left)). The company continued making mechanical chronographs, but also made complicated mechanical , electronic, and quartz watches, perpetual calendars, minute repeaters, tourbillons, extra-thin calibers, and mechanical time counters for sport and industry.

Things get rather complicated from here, so see if you can keep up:

1982: (Nouvelle) Lemania, takes over Heuer-Leonidas.

1985: The company TAG (Technique d'Avant Garde), a holding company founded in Luxembourg in 1977 by the Saudi-Syrian businessman Akram Ojjeh (1918-1991), buys (Nouvelle) Lemania and Heuer-Leonidas to create Tag Heuer.

1992: Investcorp, a global equity firm specializing in luxury goods, and owner of Breguet, buys (Nouvelle) Lemania from Tag-Heuer.

1999: The SwatchLemania Group (founded in 1983 by the merger of ASUAG and SSIH) takes over Breguet and (Nouvelle) Lemania from Investcorp.

The Investcorp sale to the Swatch Group in 1999 signaled the death knell for Lemania. Swatch management decreed that the hugely popular Lemania Caliber 5100 was not to be sold outside the Swatch Group.  This move by Swatch killed the 5100 movement, with production ending in 2002. Independents who were buying it, such as Sinn and Tutima, stocked up before production ceased, but they eventually had to find a new supplier. Over the next decade, the Lemania name faded and was eventually retired. The Lemania factory was handed over to Breguet, which remains there to this day.

The Lemania name is gone, but not forgotten, especially among collectors and historians of vintage watches. Many of today's mechanical chronograph movements can trace their roots to Lemania Calibers made 60, 70, and even 80 years ago.

Here are some previous articles I've written about Lemania:

By Bruce Shawkey

 Lemania has been called the greatest watch company in the world that you probably never heard of. Well, OK, you probably HAVE heard of them, but I'll bet you didn't know how big and important they were (and still are) in the watch world.

    That's because they only advertised their own branded watches from about 1945 to the late 1950s. Prior to this, and after this, they supplied ebauches (unsigned rough movements) to other watch companies which installed them in their own cases. These ebauches consisted mainly of chronographs, but also time-only movements. Lemania, the brand name, became briefly known to the public around 1945 and again in the '60s when they helped build the first automatic chronograph, and also sold their Caliber 321 manual wind movement that went into Omega's famous Speedmaster "Moon Watch." Then, Lemania once again faded into obscurity,  eventually acquired by Swatch Group in 1981, where their movements go into Swatch Group's various brands. As far as I'm aware, the Lemania name is not seen on any watches, which would account for why so many people are unfamiliar with the brand.

 Founded in 1884

Lemania was originally founded as "Lugrin SA" in 1884 by Alfred Lugrin (left) in the Swiss Canton of Vaud. The company name remained Lugrin SA until 1928 when Lugrin's son-in-law, Marius Meylan, registered the name "Lemania Watch Co." which  comes from "Lac Leman," a Francophile term for Lake Geneva.

Their specialty was complications, chronograph movements, long-running movements, repeaters and, yes, a few time-only movements. They sold these movements to other companies as mentioned earlier. By 1928, Lemania certainly could have come out of the shadows and sold watches bearing their own brand name, but this was not a good time to be spending the extra money necessary to mount such a campaign. The world was falling into the grip of the Great Depression. So the company stayed with being an ebauche supplier.

That changed toward the end of WW2 when they supplied an Ordnance watch (right) for the British armed forces that became part of the so-called “Dirty Dozen”. They also at that time began supplying branded civilian watches to meet the pent-up demand caused by war-time shortages and also continued supplying other companies with ebauches. That way Lemania would boost brand recognition and profit. This new approach can be seen in advertisements in the trade and consumer publications of the time (below).

This strategy worked for a while as we can see in watches from the era bearing the Lemania name (below).

Here are some additional images of Lemania watches through the decades:

1955

1955

But Lemania slipped back into obscurity with a few branded watches appearing now and then:

Then, Lemania supplied Omega with the manual wind Caliber 321 that went into the famous Speedmaster Professional. As most know, this is the watch that astronauts wore (and still wear) for manned space missions and eventually to the moon, earning the nickname "Moon Watch" and giving Lemania name recognition, at least among collectors. It is said this movement has the longest continuous production run of ANY watch, ever.

Around the same time, interest was growing in an automatic chronograph. No manufacturer wanted to bear the cost alone of designing and building such a movement. So Lemania joined several other manufacturers to design and build a movement that was eventually released in 1969 and was used (and still is) by several companies, including Heuer, Breitling, and Hamilton. Omega uses it too, but it didn't gain approval by NASA for space missions because the movement won't sufficiently wind itself in zero gravity. In any event, the automatic chronograph gave Lemania some added name recognition, at least among watch aficionados.

Lemania continued to supply signed Ordnance watches well into the ‘60s and ‘70s to armed forces of various countries, including Britain, Australia, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Russia, South Africa and Sweden.

As stated earlier, Lemania was acquired in 1981 by Nicolas Hayek, whose various purchases would eventually become Swatch Group. The brand name may have disappeared, but their movements live on in many of Swatch's brands.