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.

 

Favre-Leuba

 By Bruce Shawkey 

Favre-Leuba’s (FL) 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. Watch companies like to do this to distinguish themselves among the over 200 brands and sub-brands of watches on the market these days. FL really didn't begin to gain traction until the late 19th century. By this time, we are into the 5th generation of the Favre family. The then-patriarch of the clan, Fritz, married Adele-Fanny Leuba, and thus Favre-Leuba was formed, spreading the brand throughout Asia, especially India. A pocket watch from those early days is seen below left and is typical of watches of the era.

Some sources have lumped FL in that genre of brands little known and quickly forgotten, which is unfortunate, but understandable.

First, there is the name, which no one seems to agree how to pronounce. Depending on whether you're of Swiss or French persuasion, Favre can be pronounced FARV, (as in football quarterback Brett Favre), or FAV-ray. Then there's Leuba, which is equally confusing as to whether to emphasize the "e" or the "u." Current company execs pronounce it FAV-ray LOO-bah.

Then, there's the 22-year disappearance of the brand from the beginning of the 1990s to 2012. People, especially Americans have short memories and if something is gone for even a short time, we tend to forget about it.

Finally, FL has a reputation as a one-trick pony, namely the Bivouac, introduced in 1963, and its cousin the Bathy, introduced in 1968. To be sure, they were (and still are) pretty amazing watches, measuring air pressure by means of a sealed aneroid (without oxygen) drum housed inside the case atop the movement. For the record, though, FL made some pretty cool wristwatches,

starting in the '20s when wristwatches were beginning to supersede pocket watches. The company achieved sufficient reputation to begin expanding markets beyond India and Asia to Switzerland and the rest of Europe and introducing wristwatches. Under the direction of 6th generation Henri Favre-Leuba, some very neat pieces were produced, including a long rectangle bearing a striking resemblance to Gruen's Techniquadron, and another model, a dead ringer for Jaeger-LeCoultre's Reverso. Surviving examples are hard to come by, but a couple are shown at right.

The Second World War brought a halt to FL's growth and innovation as it did with most watch companies. But after the war, FL, now under the direction of 7th generation Dr. Henry A. Favre, the company was poised to re-enter the marketplace with the new technology of self-winding movements. FL began to hit is stride, exporting to Europe and South America in addition to its traditional markets of Asia and India. By this time, automatic winding movements had established themselves as reliable. FL capitalized on this new trend with their Calibers 101, 103, and 104, all reportedly built inhouse.

During this time, FL expanded its distribution and customer service offices to Hamburg, London, Rangoon, Karachi, and Singapore. And finally, the company broke ground in the United States, with an office in New York.

The company’s first commercially successful automatic movement was the Caliber 103. Introduced in 1956, the 11-1/2 ligne movement was built in-house and featured 21 jewels with a running reserve time of 43 hours. That same year, the company came out with the Caliber 104, basically a 103 with the addition of a date feature. The company also referred to that caliber as the Daymatic. They proudly announced those Calibers in a number of trade and consumer ads, a couple of which are shown below.

FL continued to make manual wind watches (below) with their own Calibers, and also offered complicated watches: Chronographs, triple dates, triple-date moonphases and even a triple-date moonphase chronograph (also below). The movements for these complicated watches were obtained from the usual ebauche sources (Valjoux, ETA, etc.)

 

In spite of all these innovations, the brand remained virtually unknown in this country until the '60s, and even then became a niche brand among watch enthusiasts, mountain climbers, and dive enthusiasts due to FL’s two signature innovations.

I’m speaking of course of the Bivouac (above), rolled out to the public in 1963. It utilized an anaerobic (no oxygen) sealed disk atop the movement that measured air pressure and transferred the measurement to an extra hand on the dial.

After the Bivouac came the “Bathy,” (also above) a watch worn below sea level. First came the "Bathy 50" in 1966 with a depth rating of 50 meters, followed by the “Bathy 160.“ Both  Bivouac and Bathy are thick watches to accommodate the pressure disk. Both have become cult classics among watch collectors and collectors of diving memorabilia, and are a staple in FL’s current catalog.

The company also distinguished itself in 1963 with the introduction of the manual wind Caliber 251 (ad shown right) with twin mainspring barrels instead of one, and a sweep second hand (unusual for a watch a mere 3mm thick). The double barrels assured more uniform transmission of power to the drive train. This became the basis for the automatic Caliber 269 (aka Twinmatic/Duomatic), hailed by critics as an elegant design.

What followed for the next couple decades is a weird dichotomy. On the one hand, FL offered time-honored shapes and features true to its traditions (below). 

    On the other hand, FL promoted watches with shapes and gimmicks and very little innovation (also below) as Henry A. Favre’s children, Florian and Eric (now the 8th generation), struggled to keep the company afloat. It’s easy for us, with the benefit of hindsight, to say that this latest Favre generation abandoned traditions and gave in to the whims of fashion. But we must remember that Favre-Leuba had to take the necessary steps to stay in business. Images below provide a glimpse of what FL was doing during these years.

Traditional designs: 

More trendy designs:

1972 ad

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, darkness descends on FL between 1990 and about 2012. The FL family seems to have run out of innovation, passion, or both. I find no evidence of advertising during this time nor any watches from this time period being sold or auctioned, not counting items offered where the seller is error.

Then, in 2012, a rebirth. FL is acquired by the Tata Group. This multinational conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai, is India's largest conglomerate. Founded in 1868, it has operations in 100 countries across six continents, selling everything from coffee to military vehicles. Favre-Leuba watches are still made in Switzerland, but the purse strings are controlled from India. The watches have returned to a more consistent look, reflective of the traditional Favre-Leuba. Samples from its website (https://favre-leuba.com/) are shown below.

 

Fortis

 By Bruce Shawkey

 

Walter Vogt (left), then 25, founded the company in 1912 in Grenchen. Though the company is known for its Flieger pilots' watches and chronographs, it was first a pioneer in the marketing and distribution of automatic watches. In 1926, Vogt met John Harwood at the Basel Fair where Harwood exhibited his new invention of a full rotor automatic watch. Vogt was fascinated by Harwood's invention and believing that automatic watches were the future, he offered to partner with Harwood in bringing his watch to a larger market. Thus began Fortis' distribution rights for the Harwood automatic watch, pictured below, at right.

Harwood and Vogt's partnership flourished, with a portion of the Fortis factory devoted to making Harwood watches. The partnership continued with the "Autorist," (below, left) that reportedly stayed wound by the flexing of the wrist. Fortis claims they mass produced the Autorist, but I've never seen one in the flesh, only in advertisements. The design was ill-fated, owing to the fact that the small flexing motions of the wrist were not sufficient to keep the watch wound. But it was a very creative attempt, and surely a grail watch by collectors who specialize in early automatic watches. If anyone has an image of one, I would love to see it and share with my readers. Send the image to bruce.shawkey@gmail.com.

Harwood eventually separated from Fortis to become the Perpetual Self-Winding Watch Company. Falling victim to the Great Depression, Rolex reportedly scooped up many of Harwood's patents that went into Rolex's Perpetual movement. In the 1950s, some of Rolex's ads indicated they had invented the automatic wristwatch. John Harwood sued them and won. This ad pictured below at right is the formal (court-ordered) apology that Rolex printed in 1956 and to my knowledge the only time Rolex apologized for anything! 

  As an aside, in the late 1980s, Fortis created a limited edition tribute watch to the original Harwood (round) automatic.

Rolex's court-ordered apology to John Harwood

Fortis was also one of the first companies to bring a commercially successful wrist chronograph to market in the 1930s. It is chronographs that Fortis currently promotes the most at its website. 

In 1940, Fortis released its first water-resistant watches: the Fortissimo. An example is pictured below at right. Fortis eventually produced a number of watches in the Fortissimo line, ranging from simple three hand dress and field style watches with A. Schild movements, to chronographs with Landeron movements. What the actual water resistance rating of the Fortissimo models was is unclear. The '40s and '50s were still the "wild west years" of advertising, with little regulation requiring companies to back up stated claims with fact. Most water-resistant watches in this era were simply marketed as “waterproof.”

At this point, we’ll take a break and look at some Fortis advertising through the years.

Here's a Fortis watch from a 1949 issue of Europa Star magazine, published for jewelers:

In 1956, Fortis won the first chronometer award conferred by the Swiss institute for the world's first water-resistant mechanical alarm: the Manager, shown left.

In 1961, Rolf Vogt, son of the founder, traveled to America and presented to NASA a Fortis "Spacematic AR" (All Risks) designed in recognition of the efforts and daring of the first astronauts. Those first Spacematic watches (example shown at right) did not make it into space because of the challenge of a rotor oscillating in zero gravity.  But it is still a cult classic among watch collectors.

Fortis produced many conventional wristwatches -- both manual wind and automatic -- from the '30s well into the 1960s. A few of those are pictured below.

L to R: A 1957 model with date; 1957 Eden Roc; three models from 1965, including the Skylark at extreme left.

Tuxedo, Tuxedo II, and Skylark models from a 1969 catalog.

 

By the end of the 1950s, the Fortis logo underwent its first and quite radical redesign. The majestic crown and curved letters were replaced by a modern contemporary brand logo, reflective of the progress of the 1950s. Various combinations of the old and new logo can be found on the dials of such successful models as the Eden Roc, Streamline, Marine Master, or Performance, .

By the late '60s and early '70s, Fortis was feeling the pressure of the quartz invasion and was looking to reinvent itself. Various attempts such as "Hedonist" and "Flipper," with their colorful cases reminiscent of Swatch watches and utilizing quartz movements were only partially successful (see below at right).

Flipper and two Hedonist models, right 

Fortis needed something new, and they found it in something old: the Flieger and Pilot models introduced nearly a half century before. These “new” models, introduced in the late '80s and early '90s, were the complete repudiation of the quartz invasion, with their simple lines, cases up to 40mm in diameter, and mechanical movements, indicative of the no-frills designs of the aviation watches of World War II (see below, left).

First Flieger models, circa late '80s, early '90s

The Flieger, introduced for the brand’s 75th anniversary, began with a simple dial but grew to include chronographs as well. This watch exploded in popularity with armed forces across the world; Germany, Hungary, Greece, Taiwan, Portugal, Switzerland, and multiple NATO units all had special runs made for them. It grew to be known as the real deal pilot watch, on the wrists of many combat flyers and support staff. The Flieger cemented Fortis’ burgeoning relationship with the aerospace industry, one that has come to define the brand.

Stratoliner, left, and Cosmonauts Chronograph

A Stratoliner chronograph (previously a time-only sport watch) model of 1992  with Lemania automatic 5100 movement with center-stop-minute hand (right) attracted the attention of the Russian space program and allowed Fortis an open access to space.

In 1994, Fortis released a chronograph (extreme right) that became the Official Cosmonauts Chronograph. It was perhaps Fortis’ most iconic, well known watch. Fortis themselves weren’t aware of this when they released it. It was a variation on their popular Flieger chronograph with a steel tachymeter bezel. ROSCOSMOS, the Russian space agency, invited Fortis to send several of the chronographs to them for testing and subjected them to six months of rigorous trials. The watches passed with flying colors and received a certification from the agency. The Official Cosmonauts Chronograph would go on to fly dozens of missions and thousands of hours throughout the 1990s and early 2000s on MIR and later the International Space Station. It’s widely accepted that the Cosmonauts Chronograph has most likely spent the most actual hours in spaceflight of any watch.

The company in 2012 produced a marvelous 88-page full-color 100th anniversary book which, as of September 2022, is still available at https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/81980a_5836c93dcbfb4d628141469f81e77ad3.pdf.

In 2017, the company filed for a debt restructuring moratorium, and shortly afterward, the company was taken over by Jupp Philipp, a Fortis enthusiast, who has an unlikely background in the fruit business.

The current model lineup, in my opinion, is rather like a fruit salad and reflective of Philipp’s background and includes:

* The Stratoliner, a salute to the 1992 model, now developed in cooperation with the Swedish Space Corporation to explore the stratosphere, the layer of the earth's atmosphere extending to about 32 miles (50 km) above the earth's surface and containing the all-important ozone layer, without which life on earth as we know it wouldn't be possible;

* Marinemaster, a rugged timekeeper made of recycled steel and black resin for the outdoor adventurer in 40 and 44mm case sizes;

* Flieger, in time-only and chronograph models, remaining true to the designs of the first Flieger models introduced in 1987;

* Official Cosmonauts, a salute to the company's ties to the Russian space program, but now with two models affiliated with the Austrian Space Forum; and

* Aeromaster, for more than 20 years the collection has been aimed as pilots' watches. It's a rather hodgepodge collection of alarm chronographs, chronograph, and day-date models.

I'm not sure where the company is headed. Surely, it is a far cry from the days of the Harwood automatic. Now, solely owned, with a CEO whose roots are in the fruit business, I suppose anything is possible.

L to R: Current (2022) models: Stratoliner; Marinemaster; Flieger chronograph.

L to R: Current (2022) models: Official Cosmonauts;  Aeromaster.

 

Here are some more Fortis images from the mid-1960s: