Omega Watch

Omega Biography

In 1848, 23 year old watch craftsman Louis Brandt founded what would be the forerunner to Omega in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Swtizerland. He began assembling key-wound pocket watches from parts supplied by local craftsmen. He sold watches from Italy to Scandinavia through England, his major market. After Louis Brandt’s death in 1879 at age 54, his two sons Louis Paul and Cesar took over the business. Worried about deliveries and questionable quality, they dropped the unreliable workshop assembly system in favor of in house manufacturing and quality control. In January 1880, they moved to a small factory in Biel, Switzerland, to take advantage of greater manpower, communications and energy. By December of that same year they brought the entire building. Two years later in 1882, they moved to a converted spinning factory in the Gurzelen district of Biel, where the company headquarters are still today. Their first series of production produced Labrador, Gurzelen and Omega in 1894, ensuring the brands success. Louis Paul and Cesar died in 1903, leaving one of Switzerland’s largest watch companies with 800 employees and producing 240,000 watches in the hands of four young people. The oldest Paul Emile Brandt was only 23; he would become the architect and builder of the Omega brand. His influence would be present over the next fifty years. The economic difficulties of World War One, lead him to work towards the union of Omega and Tissot and conclude their merger in 1930 within the SSIH Group. The SSIH Group under his leadership would continue to grow and from 1955 forward, Under Joseph Reiser would continue to multiply, absorbing some fifty companies. By the seventies SSIH had become Switzerland’s number one producer of Watches and number three in the world.

Due to the severe monetary crisis and recession of 1975 to 1980, SSIH was bailed out by the banks in 1981. During that period Seiko expressed interest in acquiring Omega, but nothing came out of the talks. Switzerland’s other watch giant Allgemeine Schweizerische Uhrenindustrie AG, manufacturer of ebauches produced for other Swiss watch assemblers and owner of Longines and Rado watch brands, was similarly saved a year later. After financial cleansing and a restructuring of the two groups R&D and production operations at the ETA complex in Granges, Switzerland, the two giants merged in 1983 under the holding company ASUAG-SSIH. In 1985 the holding company was taken over by a group of private investors under Nicolas Hayek and named SMH (Societe Suisse de Microelectronique et d’Horlogerie). The new group would achieve terrific growth and success and go on to become the world's top producer of watches. They would be renamed Swatch Group in 1998 and include Blancpain and Breguet. Omega still remains one of its most valuable brands.

In 1900, at the Paris World Fair, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower a century was ending while another one was beginning. As a symbol of these two links between eras, Omega received the international jury’s Grand Prix award for the excellence of its collection. Beginning in 1909 Omega has held the title of timekeeper of the Olympic Games for twenty one times and stepped into the winner’s podium to receive the Olympic Cross for Merit for “outstanding service to the world of sports”. In 1932 Omega introduced the first water resistant watch the Omega Marine tested to 135 meters and was the first of the Seamaster Lineage. The first Seamaster watch is produced in 1948 and proved to be the most precise wristwatch caliber ever tested at Geneva. The Speedmaster was Created in 1957 by Omega and in 1965 after regorous testing, NASA decided to use the Omega Speedmaster Professional Chronograph wristwatch as its official timekeeper. Omega Speedmaster Professional Chronograph is selected as the official watch worn by American astronauts and in July of 1969, worn by Neil Armstrong was the first watch on the moon. The Russian Space Agency also chose the Omega Speedmaster chronographs to accompany their astronauts. In April 1970, the Omega Speedmaster rescued the Apollo XIII mission from a possible disaster, earning it the “Snoopy Award”, NASA’s highest distinction. 1974 would see Omega produce the Marine Chronometer 2400, then the most accurate and technologically advanced watch in the world. French diver Jacques Mayol breaks a world record in 1981, for scuba diving to 101 meters without any breathing equipment while wearing a Omega Seamaster Watch. 1985 saw Omega receive the Triomphe de L’exellence Europeenne prize for the quality and originality of its models. 1995 brought Omega a presentation for the first automatic wristwatch with a centrally mounted tourbillion. In 1999, Omega made history by introducing the first mass-produced watch incorporating the co-axial escapement. It was invented by English watchmaker George Daniels and Considered by many to be one of the most important advances in watch making, functioning with virtually no lubrication. This movement has extended service intervals to about 10 years.