130 years

Image
130 years - Eberhard & Co.
With 130 years of experience, Eberhard & Co. has learned to take the ups and downs of the industry in its stride, whilst constantly innovating.

In the watch industry, a brand is either young or old. There is no middle ground. Since the quartz crisis decimated the traditional Swiss mechanical watch industry in the 1960s and 1970s, there are few watch brands between 40 and 60 years old, with the notable exception of Raymond Weil, a brand that was launched in the midst of this very crisis. Watch brands are therefore either young (20-30 years old) or tend to be centenarians at the very least, predating the two world wars.

Eberhard & Co. is clearly in the elder category. Established by Georges-Lucien Eberhard in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1887, the brand celebrates its 130th anniversary this year. From its earliest years, Eberhard & Co. has been an innovator, with one of its first wristwatches featuring a patented display that showed the hours and minutes on discs visible behind apertures cut out of the main dial, leaving the rest free for the centre seconds with clearly readable multiple scales and off-set chronograph counters.

130 ans

This invention set the tone for the brand’s development, with further patents coming in the realm of chronographs, from the 1935 chronograph with independent start and stop pushers and the 1939 split-seconds monopusher chronograph (the pushbutton at 4 o’clock locks the chronograph mechanism to prevent inadvertent operation) right up to the more recent Chrono4 – the only chronograph with four counters in horizontal alignment.

130 ans

It is this more recent patent, that has been used to commemorate the 130th anniversary of Eberhard, with two new models added to the existing line-up. The Chrono4 130 has a new 42mm diameter case with a satin-finished bezel and a crown personalised with the 130 number. Available with dials in grey, silver or black, this new model retails for 4,880 Swiss francs.

130 ans

The pièce de résistance in the 2017 collection is a limited-edition model with an openworked dial, covered by a sapphire disc that is just 3/10ths of a millimetre thick, which shows off the DLC-coated movement mainplate and the unique gear-wheel arrangement of the Chrono4 movement. Sapphire crystal is also used for the case back, allowing a view of the distinctive circular oscillating mass with its customised 130 number. A grey-black “carbon-wear” strap completes the high-tech look of this model, which is limited to 130 pieces and retails for 9,240 Swiss francs.

130 ans

Featured brand