The world's leading manufacturer of Swiss Army watches is International Watch Company. The company was founded in 1868 by American engineer Florentine Ariosoto Jones. Jones wanted to combine the craftsmanship found in Switzerland with modern engineering methods -- the result being the modern Swiss Army watch.
Jones suggested this idea to Schaffhausen, a Swiss town which was left behind during the Industrial Revolution. Initially, Swiss people were unsure about Jones' idea and believed that it would only result in low quality watches. They were also sceptical that they would not be earning much as a result of a bluff idea.
Johann Heinrich Moser selected the city for the location of his first hydroelectric plant. Jones and Moser eventually met up and, together, built the first Swiss Army watch plant in the city.
Year 1888 marked changes to the Swiss Army watches' quality due to the introduction of electricity to the company. International Watch Company started providing additional worker's benefit like health insurance, pension, housing plans and the like, after World War I.
Having invested on quartz movement, International Watch Company is the leading name of quality Swiss Army watches. They were also the first to manufacture Swiss Army watches that are electronic battery operated.
The company fell on hard times in the mid 1970's when gold prices escalated. The result was that it was no longer beneficial to export top quality Swiss Army watches to the United Statesand the rest of the world. Japan began to export poor-quality quartz clocks which were sad knock offs of the original Swiss Army watches.
The company rebounded by bringing in professional designers and engineers. The result was best quality, high fashion masterpieces produced with expensive jewellery watches designed by the likes of Porsche. In a little while, Swiss Army watches were again acclaimed around the world and highly preferred by customers.
International Watch Company records the details of every single watch they made since 1880. Hence, owners of Swiss Army watches can bring their pieces to the company to get it checked also repaired.
At present, their Swiss Army watches starts at US$100 to US$1000. They also do annual auctions for welfare works with schools in Mali as beneficiaries.
Swiss Army perfumes are stocked in several major department stores. To get further info on the popular Swiss Army pocket watch follow the link.
Posted under Watches
This post was written by Matt Hartley on April 2, 2011

