'International Watch Co', also known as 'IWC', is a Swiss
watch manufacturer located in
Schaffhausen,
Switzerland. IWC is an active member of the
Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry FH.
Located in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, IWC Schaffhausen is notable for being the only major Swiss watch factory located in eastern Switzerland, as the majority of the well-known Swiss watch manufacturers are located in western Switzerland. "
[1]
Notwithstanding the lingua franca of IWC is French.
[2]
Motto
IWC's motto is '''Probus Scafusia''' (L.), meaning "''good, solid craftsmanship from
Schaffhausen''"
[3] and was established in
1903 as the "Official Motto."
[4]
History
Creation
An IWC Watch
In
1868, an American engineer and watchmaker Florentine Ariosto Jones who had been a director of
E. Howard & Co., in Boston, then America's leading watchmaking company, founded the International Watch Company with the intention of combining the craftsmanship of the Swiss with the modern engineering technology from the U.S. to manufacture movements and watch parts for the American market."
[5] At the time, wages in Switzerland were relatively low although there was a ready supply of skilled watchmaking labor"
[5] mainly carried out by people in their homes. Jones encountered opposition to his plans in
French-speaking Switzerland because people feared for their jobs"
[5] and the work they did at home because Jones wanted to open a factory.
In
1850 the town of
Schaffhausen was in danger of being left behind in the
Industrial Age. It was at this stage that watch manufacturer and industrialist Johann Heinrich Moser stepped in and did the region a huge service. As a pioneer of ''
white coal'', he built Schaffhausen's first hydroelectric plant and laid the cornerstone for future industrialization."
[8] He probably met F.A. Jones in Le Locle and showed great interest in his plans. Together, they laid the foundations for the first and only watch manufacturers in north-eastern Switzerland: The International Watch Company in
Schaffhausen.
Early Stages
In
1869 F.A. Jones rented the first factory premises in an industrial building owned by J.H. Moser in
Rheinstrasse. Very soon he had to rent further rooms in the ''
Oberhaus'', one of the oldest buildings in
Schaffhausen. By
1874 plans were already being made for a new factory and a site was purchased from Moser's hydroelectric company which was directly adjacent to the banks of the
Rhine and called the ''
Baumgarten''.
Schaffhausen architect G. Meyer won the order to design and build the factory. A year later, in the spring of
1875, the construction work was completed. At first, 196 people worked in the 45 meter long factory, which could accommodate up to 300 workplaces..
IWC and the Rauschenbach Family
The ''Portuguese'' series of watches
, Chief Executive Officer and a machine manufacturer from
Schaffhausen, took over the INTERNATIONALE UHRENFABRIK on 17 February
1880. Four generations of the Rauschenbach family owned IWC, with varying names.
Only a year after the sale,
Johannes Rauschenbach died. His son,
Johannes Rauschenbach-Schenk, was 25 years old when he took over the UHRENFABRIK VON J. RAUSCHENBACH and ran it successfully until his own death on 2 March
1905.
Another significant role on the way to the company's success was played by Urs Haenggi from
Nunningen in the canton of
Solothurn. He had got to know the watch business in French-speaking Switzerland and France; in 1883 he joined IWC and stayed with the company for 52 years. He was responsible for getting factory operations up and running smoothly and acquiring new customers. He was also responsible for warding off the prospect of the outside interests acquiring IWC "in the interest of the noble Rauschenbach family".
After the death of
J. Rauschenbach-Schenk in 1905, his wife, two daughters and their husbands,
Ernst Jakob Homberger (director of G. Fischer AG in Schaffhausen) and Dr.
Carl Jung (psychologist and psychiatrist), took over the watch factory as an open trading company by the name of the UHRENFABRIK VON J. RAUSCHENBACH'S ERBEN. E.J. Homberger was the only authorized signatory, Haenggi and Vogel were directors.
Following the death of his father-in-law, Ernst Jakob Homberger had a considerable influence on the Schaffhausen watchmaking company's affairs and guided it through one of the most turbulent epochs in Europe's history. Just before the world economic crisis, he took over as sole proprietor and renamed the company UHRENFABRIK VON ERNST HOMBERGER-RAUSCHENBACH, formerly INTERNATIONAL WATCH CO. His contribution was honored in 1952, when he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the
University of St. Gallen. He died in 1955, aged 85 years.
Hans Ernst Homberger was the third and last of the Rauschenbach heirs to run the factory as a sole proprietor. He had joined his father's company in 1934 and took control after his death in April 1955. In 1957 he added a new wing to the factory and in the same year set up a modern pension fund for the staff. He bought new machines to meet new demands and continuously brought his production technology up to what were considered the very latest standards. He died in 1986 at the age of 77.
Prominent Technicians
Technician
Johann Vogel from
Wangen on the
Aare in
Solothurn played an important role as technical director. He designed and developed IWC calibers until
1919.
In
1885, IWC manufactured the first digital watch based on a patent granted to an Austrian by the name of
Pallweber. It was a simple design, but was unable to replace the traditional analogue display.
Electrical Era
In 1888
electricity began to take over at the watch factory. J. Rauschenbach had a power line installed which supplied it with electricity. During the first few years the electrical power was probably used only for lighting purposes and the galvanic gold-plating of watch movement parts. Shortly before the turn of the century, the company started converting its production machines to electricity. An electric motor made by Brown, Boveri & Co. from
Baden powered the engines in the factory, transmitting the energy via a complicated arrangement of shafts and drive belts in the factory workshops. These were later replaced during the 1930s with individually-powered machines.
1900 - 1960
During the period just before and after the
First World War, E.J. Homberger devoted himself to devising and setting up social institutions. He extended the living quarters for factory employees and established a fund for widows and orphans. In 1929, the name of the fund was changed to the
J.Rauschenbach Foundation and in 1949 he founded the
Watch Company Welfare Foundation.
On April 1 1944, as a result of a fatal error,
Schaffhausen was bombed by the
United States Army Air Force. The watch factory was hit by a bomb which failed to detonate after crashing through the rafters. The flames from incendiaries exploding nearby penetrated the building through the broken windows but were extinguished by the company's own fire brigade.
After
World War 2, IWC was forced to change its focus. All of
Eastern Europe had fallen under the
Iron Curtain, and the economy of
Germany was in shambles. As a result, old contacts and connections with other countries in
Europe and the
Americas as well as
Australia and the
Far East were revived and intensified or established.
1970's - Present
The IWC Da Vinci
In the 1970s and 80s, the Swiss watchmaking industry underwent a phase of far-reaching technological change. Following in the wake of the use of miniaturized electric batteries as a source of energy for wristwatches from the late 1940s onwards and the invention of the
transistor in 1947, purely mechanical watch technology developed into a hybrid discipline of precision mechanics and electronics.
IWC managed to avoid investing heavily in expensive and eventually unsuccessful technologies, such as the electronically controlled balance. The UHRENFABRIK H. E. HOMBERGER co-founded and was a shareholder in the ""
Centre Electronique l'Horlogerie Suisse"" (
CEH) in
Neuchâtel and was financially involved in the development of the
Beta 21 quartz wristwatch movement, which was first presented to the public at the 1969 Industrial Fair in
Basel. In actual value terms, this movement accounted for about 5-6% of total sales of quartz watches. Parallel to this, the company expanded its collection of jeweler watches to include ladies watches with mechanical movements. The year 1973 was IWC's most successful of the post-war period.
The cataclysmic rise in gold prices in 1974 had grave consequences for the watch exporting industry. Between 1970 and 1974 the price of gold rose from 4850 to 18 000 francs and the value of the dollar against the Swiss currency plummeted by up to 40%. As a result, the price of watch exports rose by as much as 250%. At the same time
Japan was flooding the market with cheap quartz watches.
A change of direction was necessary and this led to the adoption of a number of measures. In order to survive, IWC, under the leadership of Director and CEO
Otto Heller, built up a line of high-quality pocket watches, and, apart from setting up its own modern wristwatch and case manufacturing facilities, began working closely with
Ferdinand A. Porsche as an external designer. In addition, IWC pioneered new watchmaking technologies, notably the first titanium bracelets, developed in 1978.
For its new plans IWC required a high level of venture capital. With the help of the
Swiss Banking Corporation, the company was put in contact with
VDO Adolf Schindling AG, which took a majority interest in IWC in 1978.
The IWC GST (Ref. 3707)
At the same time, IWC reacquired the name it had originally been given by its founder F.A. Jones (INTERNATIONAL WATCH CO. AG).
In 1981,
Otto Heller succeeded
H.E. Homberger as general manager following the latter's retirement on age grounds. The new director,
Günter Blümlein, pushed for rapid implementation of planned changes, put the existing advertising campaign to work, built up the customer base, and solidified IWC's finances.
In 1991 IWC director
Günter Blümlein founded the
LMH Group with its headquarters in
Schaffhausen. With a 100% stake in IWC, 60% in
Jaeger-LeCoultre and 90% in the Saxony-based watchmaking company of
A. Lange & Söhne, the Group employed some 1440 persons.
In July 2000, LMH was acquired by
Richemont, a Zug-based luxury goods group, for CHF 2.8 bn. Despite the takeover by
Richemont, IWC was guaranteed that it would continue to be managed by the same executives from the LMH Group.
In the year 2001 IWC went online with the Collectors Forum.
Sales History
The company began keeping detailed records for every watch that has left the factory since 1885. Since 1885, details of the caliber, materials used and cases have been entered into the records. In the case of later models, these also include the reference number, delivery date and the name of the authorized dealer. For a small fee, the owner can obtain precise information about their watch, as long as the watch is at least ten (10) years old.
[9]
The company claims that its service department has the parts and is capable of repairing and maintaining watches from every era since IWC's foundation in 1868."
[10]
IWC Movements
Most modern movements in watches of IWC are not produced in house by IWC. Almost all movements are based on movements supplied by
ETA and modified by IWC. This is common practice by many high end watch marques. In particular, the Caliber 30110 is a modified ETA 2892A2, and the Caliber 79230/79320/79350 is a modified ETA/Valjoux 7750. Movements not based off of ETA movements include the Caliber 5000 and the Caliber 8000, which use the Pellaton winding system, and the pocket watch movements used in the Portuguese F.A. Jones and other IWC pocket watches. IWC also uses a JLC meca-quartz movement in their Portofino chronographs.
Publication
Four times a year, IWC publishes a customer magazine entitled, ''Watch International.'' This publication is available in German, French and English, and included stories, articles and features about IWC. "
[11]
References
1. Watches from IWC, IWC Schaffausen, Branch of Richemont International SA, Schaffhausen, March 2006, at page 226.
2. Shaping up, Watch International, IWC, Schaffausen, Nr.2/2005, July 2005, at p.43
3. Watches from IWC, at page 226.
4. Watches from IWC, at page 11; 227, n. 3.
5. Watches from IWC, at page 9.
6. Watches from IWC, at page 9.
7. Watches from IWC, at page 9.
8. Watches from IWC, at page 10.
9. Watches from IWC, at page 246.
10. Watches from IWC, at page 249.
11. Watches from IWC, at page 259.
External Links
★
Official IWC Website
★
History of IWC
★
IWC Models
★
Emblematic models of IWC
★
Information on IWC's History
★
Information on IWC's Engravings and Motto
★
Information on IWC's Flieger (Pilot) Watches
★
Information on IWC's wrist- and pocketwatches
★
IWC Watches
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