Longines
Encyclopedia
Saint-Imier
Saint-Imier is a municipality in the Jura bernois administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It is located in the French-speaking Bernese Jura .Observatoire Astronomique de Mont-Soleil is located above the village....
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. The company was originally founded by Auguste Agassiz
Agassiz family
The Agassiz Family is a family of Swiss origin, hailing from the small village of Agiez near Lake Neuchatel. The family has included a number of high profile members, such as the scientists Louis and Alexander Agassiz, as well as the founder of the Longines watch firm, Auguste Agassiz.-Family...
in 1832 and it currently holds the oldest registered logo for a watch company (a winged hourglass). Longines is currently owned by the Swatch Group.
Longines is known for its 'Aviators' watches. One director of Longines was a friend of Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist.Lindbergh, a 25-year-old U.S...
; after his transatlantic flight, Lindbergh designed a pilot watch to help with air navigation. The watch was built to his desired specifications, and is still produced today.
Famous aviators, explorers and pioneers have consulted Longines. Longines provided timers used at the first modern day Olympics in 1892. In 1899, Longines went to the North Pole with Arctic explorer Louis Amédée de Savoie. It was the first to use automatic timekeeping for the Federal Gymnastics, at Basel in 1912. Today, Longines remains a widely recognized name in sport watches and chronographs.
Foundation
The Longines’ story began in 1832, when Auguste Agassiz
Agassiz family
The Agassiz Family is a family of Swiss origin, hailing from the small village of Agiez near Lake Neuchatel. The family has included a number of high profile members, such as the scientists Louis and Alexander Agassiz, as well as the founder of the Longines watch firm, Auguste Agassiz.-Family...
, brother of naturalist Louis Agassiz
Louis Agassiz
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz was a Swiss paleontologist, glaciologist, geologist and a prominent innovator in the study of the Earth's natural history. He grew up in Switzerland and became a professor of natural history at University of Neuchâtel...
, found a job in the hamlet of Saint-Imier
Saint-Imier
Saint-Imier is a municipality in the Jura bernois administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It is located in the French-speaking Bernese Jura .Observatoire Astronomique de Mont-Soleil is located above the village....
, joining Comptoir Horloger Raiguel Jeune (a trader of watch parts), in 1833 taking over the business when he and two of his associates set up a company named Comptoir Raiguel Jeue & Cie. The venture was run on the then-prevailing business model based on piecework by people making or processing watch parts in their own homes for the account of a jobber who delivered the blanks, or rough parts, and picked up and paid for the finished ones. The company soon found ways to market its timepieces in distant markets, not least in the Americas.
Agassiz & Compagnie
In 1847 Agassiz became the sole owner of the company which he renamed Agassiz & Compagnie. In 1852, his nephew Ernest Francillon joined the company. During the 1850s, Francillon took over the business from his ailing uncle, focusing on increasing and improving the production of standard watch designs.Ancienne Maison Auguste Agassiz, Ernest Francillon, successeur
In 1862 Francillon renamed the venture Ancienne Maison Auguste Agassiz, Ernest Francillon, successeur, adding his own name to his uncle’s, but acknowledging the latter’s pioneering role. As he took over day-to-day management, Francillon looked for ways of improving and streamlining production, then parceled out to a number of different sites. His idea was to gather everything under one roof, in keeping with his vision of a factory where mechanical manufacturing and assembly methods would enable him to make and finish watches in one integrated process.Les Longines
From this perspective, in 1866, Francillon purchased two adjoining plots of land at a place locally known as Les Longines (meaning "long and narrow fields" in the local dialect) on the right bank of the River Suze in the Saint-Imier valley. Here he built a factory, to gather the entire production under one roof. By 1867, Francillon had convinced some of his pieceworkers to transfer their activities to his newly built factory and hired a young kinsman, the engineer Jacques David, to help him devise the tools and machines which he needed to improve the manufacturing processes. Despite various setbacks, the Longines factory’s prosperous growth vindicated Francillon’s bold vision. Mechanization of the production processes was successfully implemented thanks to Jacques David’s talent at conceiving and building machines that seconded watchmakers in their tasks and improved the quality of their work.The Philadelphia Universal Exhibition of 1876
Convinced of the merit of mechanical production, Jacques David traveled to the Philadelphia Universal Exhibition of 1876 and returned to write a report that triggered a wide-ranging debate within the Swiss watch industry of his day.Manufacture Longines
The first in-house Longines movementMovement (clockwork)
In horology, a movement is the internal mechanism of a clock or watch, as opposed to the case, which encloses and protects the movement, and the face which displays the time. The term originated with mechanical timepieces, whose movements are made of many moving parts...
was created in 1867. Francillon was the first watchmaker to introduce the winding crown. (All watches before that were wound with a key.) The same year Ernest Francillon
Agassiz family
The Agassiz Family is a family of Swiss origin, hailing from the small village of Agiez near Lake Neuchatel. The family has included a number of high profile members, such as the scientists Louis and Alexander Agassiz, as well as the founder of the Longines watch firm, Auguste Agassiz.-Family...
returned from the World's Fair
World's Fair
World's fair, World fair, Universal Exposition, and World Expo are various large public exhibitions held in different parts of the world. The first Expo was held in The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, United Kingdom, in 1851, under the title "Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All...
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
with a bronze medal for this watch. From the 1870s on, Longines’ industrial options proved judicious and the company grew steadily until the first third of the 20th century. The buildings themselves regularly had to be adapted to the needs of a flourishing enterprise which, by 1911, employed over 1,100 people and sold its timepieces worldwide.
Worldwide acclaim
Over the years, the company’s various technical research projects earned so much acclaim abroad that Longines could claim the title of “leading prize winner” at international exhibitions up to the Barcelona Exhibition of 1929. It garnered ten Grands Prix (Antwerp 1885, Paris 1889, Brussels 1897, Paris 1900, Milan 1906, Bern 1914, Genoa 1914, Paris 1925, Philadelphia 1926 and Barcelona 1929). In 1969, Longines’ corporate tradition of technical innovation yielded the first cybernetic quartz electronic wristwatch ever designed by a watch manufacturer’s in-house research facilities.The Winged Clepsydra
In 1880, on 19 July, the Longines brand and logo were registered at the Swiss Federal Office of Intellectual Property, now the World Intellectual Property OrganizationWorld Intellectual Property Organization
The World Intellectual Property Organization is one of the 17 specialized agencies of the United Nations. WIPO was created in 1967 "to encourage creative activity, to promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world"....
. The company had by 1867 already adopted its Winged Hourglass symbol both as a mark of quality and as a defence against counterfeiting.
Sports timing
Longines gradually built a special relationship with the world of sport. Present in Athens in 1896, the company has been closely associated with the worldwide development of sport, timing Olympic Games fourteen times, beginning with Oslo in 1952. Its partnership drove the company to devise a variety of inventions and developments enabling it to determine and display winning times.Equestrian sports
In 1952, its Photogines was the first device to visualize the finish line as it measured times. By 1960, the Contifort combined moving images and timing functions. These and other inventive developments contributed to Longines’ sporting credentials. Longines started equestrian timekeeping in 1926 at the Concours Hippique International in Geneva. It has since then officiated at more than one hundred national and international show-jumping competitions in Europe and in North America, providing timing services at competitions including World Championships, European Championships, and Olympic Games along with many CSIO meets as well as, more recently, Arab League competitions.Gymnastics
After the great success of wristwatches at the beginning of the 20th century, the Longines factory underwent a massive reorganization of methods of production during the 1920s and 30s. In 1912 Longines began a close partnership with gymnasticsGymnastics
Gymnastics is a sport involving performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and balance. Internationally, all of the gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique with each country having its own national governing body...
as the official timekeeper for the 1912 Swiss Federal Gymnastics Meet in Basel. The result of this partnership was the introduction of automatic timing. In 1912 at the Swiss Federal Gymnastics Meet, it introduced the "broken wire" automatic timing system.
Formula One racing
Longines' mastery of advanced technologies moved it also to approach Formula One racing, an experience that ultimately led to a partnership with FerrariFerrari
Ferrari S.p.A. is an Italian sports car manufacturer based in Maranello, Italy. Founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1929, as Scuderia Ferrari, the company sponsored drivers and manufactured race cars before moving into production of street-legal vehicles as Ferrari S.p.A. in 1947...
of Italy.
Skiing
Longines started in skiing in 1933, and returned to it in 2006, becoming official timekeeper for the FISFIS
FIS may refer to:In English:* Faculty of Information Studies, now the University of Toronto Faculty of Information* Fairy Investigation Society* Far-Infrared Surveyor, an instrument on the AKARI space telescope* Federal Inspection Station of the U.S...
’s 2006-2007 Alpine World Cup competitions.
Tennis
Longines has been the official timekeeper and partner of the French Open since 2007, as well as the Kremlin CupKremlin Cup
The Kremlin Cup is a professional tennis tournament played on indoor hard courts. It is currently part of the ATP World Tour 250 series of the ATP Tour and is a Premier Tournament on the WTA Tour...
and the Japan Open Tennis Championships
Japan Open Tennis Championships
The Rakuten Japan Open Tennis Championships is a tennis tournament held in Ariake Tennis Forest Park with its center court Ariake Coliseum, located in Kōtō, Tokyo, Japan. The championship includes both men's and women's, as well as singles and doubles competitions...
since 2009. Former world ATP No. 1 Andre Agassi
Andre Agassi
Andre Kirk Agassi is a retired American professional tennis player and former world no. 1. Generally considered by critics and fellow players to be one of the greatest tennis players of all time, Agassi has been called the best service returner in the history of the game...
and WTA No. 1 Steffi Graf
Steffi Graf
Steffi Graf is a former World No. 1 German tennis player.In total, Graf won 22 Grand Slam singles titles, second among male and female players only to Margaret Court's 24...
were named "Ambassadors of Elegance" in 2008 and Longines has been a longtime partner and sponsor of Agassi's Foundation for Education and Children for Tomorrow. In 2010, the brand has announced its U.S. and global tennis program aimed at supporting and developing junior athletes.
Tour de France
In addition to the Olympic Games, Longines has timed 31 Tours de FranceTour de France
The Tour de France is an annual bicycle race held in France and nearby countries. First staged in 1903, the race covers more than and lasts three weeks. As the best known and most prestigious of cycling's three "Grand Tours", the Tour de France attracts riders and teams from around the world. The...
.
Aeronautics
Fédération Aéronautique Internationale
The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale is the world governing body for air sports and aeronautics and astronautics world records. Its head office is in Lausanne, Switzerland. This includes man-carrying aerospace vehicles from balloons to spacecraft, and unmanned aerial vehicles...
(FAI), Longines has provided the watches required to set and then certify numerous world flight records – not least Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist.Lindbergh, a 25-year-old U.S...
’s 1927 first nonstop solo crossing of the North Atlantic. Instruments designed and built by Longines have thus helped world explorers and trailblazers of the skies. Thus, in 1927 Longines timed Lindbergh's transatlantic flight
Transatlantic flight
Transatlantic flight is the flight of an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean. A transatlantic flight may proceed east-to-west, originating in Europe or Africa and terminating in North America or South America, or it may go in the reverse direction, west-to-east...
, which lasted 33 hours and 30 minutes. In the middle of the 20th century Longines was part of the rise of women's aviation
General aviation
General aviation is one of the two categories of civil aviation. It refers to all flights other than military and scheduled airline and regular cargo flights, both private and commercial. General aviation flights range from gliders and powered parachutes to large, non-scheduled cargo jet flights...
, with Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Mary Earhart was a noted American aviation pioneer and author. Earhart was the first woman to receive the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded for becoming the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean...
who was another famous wearer of the brand. This period also marked the appearance of the first in-house self-winding
Automatic watch
An automatic or self-winding watch is a mechanical watch, whose mainspring is wound automatically by the natural motion of the wearer's arm, providing energy to run the watch, to make it unnecessary to manually wind the watch. A watch which is not self-winding is called a manual watch...
watches and the company won several prestigious awards. Among those awards there were four Diamonds-International Academy Awards and the Prix d'Honneur of Lausanne
Lausanne
Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...
. In the mid 1930s Longines patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
ed the flyback chronograph
Flyback chronograph
A flyback chronograph is a complication watch, which uses a single push of the button for stopping, resetting and restarting the chronograph function of the watch.-Other names:The flyback function has also some other names:* Retour-en-vol * Taylor system...
.
The 1970s
In the 1970s Longines experienced a breakthrough in development and production.In 1972, Longines was the first world watch maker to introduce a LCD-display watch on the consumer market. There were advances in performance of the watches and their appearance continued to change. In 1980s there were a series of ultra-thin designs following another world record of Longines in 1979 - the thinnest quartz watch called the Feuille d'Or - it was just 1.98 mm thick.
The 1980s
In 1982 the factory issued watches advertising its new partnership with the FerrariFerrari
Ferrari S.p.A. is an Italian sports car manufacturer based in Maranello, Italy. Founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1929, as Scuderia Ferrari, the company sponsored drivers and manufactured race cars before moving into production of street-legal vehicles as Ferrari S.p.A. in 1947...
Formula One
Formula One
Formula One, also known as Formula 1 or F1 and referred to officially as the FIA Formula One World Championship, is the highest class of single seater auto racing sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile . The "formula" designation in the name refers to a set of rules with which...
Team. In 1984 they introduced the Conquest VHP (Very High Precision) caliber - the first thermocompensated quartz movement. It set new accuracy standards with a variance of only +/-12 seconds a year. Thermocompensation uses a highly sensitive thermometer to measure surrounding temperatures and slightly adjust the frequency of the quartz oscillator to compensate for adverse effects on timekeeping caused by temperature fluctuation.
Thirty million watches
On 19 February 2001 Longines produced the 30 millionth watch at their factory. In 2002 the brand celebrated the 170th year of the flying hourglassHourglass
An hourglass measures the passage of a few minutes or an hour of time. It has two connected vertical glass bulbs allowing a regulated trickle of material from the top to the bottom. Once the top bulb is empty, it can be inverted to begin timing again. The name hourglass comes from historically...
logo.
Baseball scoreboard clocks
The Longines name was once conspicuously displayed above the analog clocks topping many scoreboards in stadiumStadium
A modern stadium is a place or venue for outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit and view the event.)Pausanias noted that for about half a century the only event...
s, baseball parks and arenas, in the days before the time of day was kept digitally. Three notable examples were the clock towards the right top of the main scoreboard at Shea Stadium
Shea Stadium
William A. Shea Municipal Stadium, usually shortened to Shea Stadium or just Shea , was a stadium in the New York City borough of Queens, in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park. It was the home baseball park of Major League Baseball's New York Mets from 1964 to 2008...
, which was removed at the end of the 1979 season and replaced with a digital clock, the scoreboard clock at Yankee Stadium
Yankee Stadium
Yankee Stadium was a stadium located in The Bronx in New York City, New York. It was the home ballpark of the New York Yankees from 1923 to 1973 and from 1976 to 2008. The stadium hosted 6,581 Yankees regular season home games during its 85-year history. It was also the former home of the New York...
before the stadium was remodeled during the early 1970s, and the scoreboard at Crosley Field
Crosley Field
Crosley Field was a Major League Baseball park located in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was the home field of the National League's Cincinnati Reds from 1912 through June 24, 1970, and the original Cincinnati Bengals football team, members of the second and third American Football League...
in Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...
. So nostalgic were Cincinnati fans for the latter, a replica was installed atop the main scoreboard when a new ballpark, Great American Ballpark, was built there to replace Crosley's "cookie cutter" successor, Riverfront Stadium. The Longines logo was given much publicity in a photograph of Pittsburgh Pirates
Pittsburgh Pirates
The Pittsburgh Pirates are a Major League Baseball club based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They play in the Central Division of the National League, and are five-time World Series Champions...
second baseman Bill Mazeroski
Bill Mazeroski
William Stanley Mazeroski , nicknamed "Maz", is a former Major League Baseball player who spent his entire career with the Pittsburgh Pirates...
's 1960 World Series-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth-inning, was hit directly above a Longines sign at Pittsburgh's Forbes Field
Forbes Field
Forbes Field was a baseball park in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1909 to 1971. It was the third home of the Pittsburgh Pirates Major League Baseball team, and the first home of the Pittsburgh Steelers, the city's National Football League franchise...
. While many of these originals have been removed, some still remain, including one at the University of Kansas
University of Kansas
The University of Kansas is a public research university and the largest university in the state of Kansas. KU campuses are located in Lawrence, Wichita, Overland Park, and Kansas City, Kansas with the main campus being located in Lawrence on Mount Oread, the highest point in Lawrence. The...
's Allen Fieldhouse
Allen Fieldhouse
Allen Fieldhouse is an indoor arena at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. The arena, named in honor of Dr. Forrest C. "Phog" Allen, who coached the university's men's basketball team for 39 years, is one of college basketball's most historically significant and prestigious buildings...
which is in full working order on the west wall above the basketball court.