Archives & heritage


Archives & heritage

A chronology of the chronograph

FROM THE BALANCE SPRING TO THE MOON (1675–1969)

By Europa Star
January 2018


A chronology of the chronograph

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WATCH FILES
Archives & heritage  

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A history of watch advertising: 1970-1979

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A history of watch advertising: 1960-1969

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A history of watch advertising: 1950-1959

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A history of watch advertising: 1930-1939

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A history of watch advertising: 1920-1929

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A history of watch advertising: 1900-1919

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The story of the Tissot Ping-Han Railway Watch

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Anarchists and watchmakers

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From the archives: our first look at the Swatch

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Louis Cottier’s archives to be digitised

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Lang 1943: several decades in a single watch

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Reviving a watch brand: a risky venture

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The second life of watch archives

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Just imagine: a new, horological Library of Alexandria, accessible at the click of a button to journalists, collectors, designers, historians and (...)

Looking back, to move forward

EDITORIAL

July 2022
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Debunking the Quartz Crisis

July 2022
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Launch of The Watch Library Foundation

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June 2022
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The second life of Zenith’s legendary 135-O calibre

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Watchmaking in 1927: major structural changes

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“Improving confidence in buying vintage Heuer”

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January 2022
Nicholas Biebuyck is the new Heritage Director at TAG Heuer, a brand that is working on leveraging its long history, a key priority since its partnership (...)

UNESCO: a new starting point for watchmaking

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In December 2020, UNESCO added the “craftsmanship of mechanical watchmaking and art mechanics” to its representative list of the intangible cultural heritage (...)

New watch archives online (1936-2021)

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Watchmaking now on UNESCO’s world heritage list

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December 2020
UNESCO has registered the craftsmanship of mechanical watchmaking and art mechanics on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of (...)

Can watchmaking avoid another tragic loss of heritage?

KNOW-HOW

September 2020
Forty years ago, the quartz crisis caused havoc in the Swiss watch industry, leading to the destruction of many valuable documents in the ensuing economic (...)

A book on the most beautiful watch dials

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August 2020
There are innumerable books devoted to watchmaking, but as astonishing as it may seem, until now there was no work, no comprehensive survey focused (...)

Longines: the forgotten “first commercial quartz crystal watch”

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On August 20, 1969, Longines convened the press in Geneva to announce the world’s first commercial quartz wristwatch. Known as the Ultra-Quartz, it was more (...)

From Bulova to Omega: 50 years of lunar adventures

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Today, we tend to associate the conquest of space with the Omega Speedmaster – the only watch worn on the moon, as the Swatch Group manufacture emphasises (...)

Treasures from Enicar’s golden age

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The legendary Swiss watch company founded in 1913 comes to life again in a beautiful book by Dutchman Martijn van der Ven. The author used illustrations (...)

Secret Gérald Genta designs soon to be revealed

EXCLUSIVE

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1950-2020: The voices of my ancestors... and mine

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As wishes are in order for 2020, I succumbed to the temptation to look at what my predecessors had written as Europa Star entered each new decade since (...)

The saga of the Bivouac by Favre-Leuba

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In August 1964, the great mountaineering pioneers Walter Bonatti and Michel Vaucher took four days to conquer the arduous, virgin North face of Whymper (...)

Introducing the MIH Gaïa watch

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The Musée international d’horlogerie’s second timepiece has been unveiled and released in La Chaux-de-Fonds in honour of the the 25th edition of the eponymous (...)

Two of the oldest horological organizations join forces

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The Horological Society of New York and the British Horological Institute will teach for the first time in their combined 300 years of history joint (...)

The quest for an everlasting story

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March 2019
Never has the watchmaking heritage of watch brands been so well-documented. The fashion for vintage has had a hand in this, forcing watchmakers to (...)

WWII Japanese military watches

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The rise and fall of the Japanese Empire during WWII is a deeply captivating but also frightening piece of history of the 20th century. If military watches (...)

The Movado Ermeto: the original “smart” watch

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The story behind the Movado Ermeto, a disruptive timepiece that went against the flow of the rest of the watch industry. Smart, innovative, elegant yet (...)

The historic links between watchmakers and arms manufacturers

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Detonators, ammunition and vehicle dashboards: the two sectors complemented one another for no fewer than eight centuries, during which watchmakers (...)

Watchmakers test their DNA

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December 2018
The grand old companies with an uninterrupted history, such as Rolex, Audemars Piguet or Patek Philippe, maintain their heritage with absolute consistency (...)

Heritage: The power of the past

ARCHIVES AND HERITAGE

December 2018
In the watch business it’s difficult to talk about the present without bringing up the past. It’s almost Pavlovian.

Yesterday’s marketing is more modern than you think it is

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Art deco advertisements certainly look prettier mounted on your wall than the modern ones you’ll find in the glossy magazines in your doctor’s waiting room. (...)

The risky lure of neo-vintage

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Slowly but surely over the past few years, a vintage wave has been sweeping through the watchmaking establishment and influencing styles like few phenomena (...)

From sedentary time to travelling clocks

HISTORY

February 2018
Whether in quest of pastures new, whether migrating, invading or conquering, engaged in trading and cultural exchanges or on exploration, crusades or (...)

Zulu time

TRAVEL WATCHES

February 2018
Compared with Universal Time and its traditional 24 time zones, the GMT watch is more modest in its offerings: a second time zone, a second ‘point of (...)

Have time, will travel

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Watchmakers did not need Einstein to intuitively understand that time and space are closely associated, like the two faces of the same coin. Their art was (...)
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