Baume & Mercier

The Baume brothers opened a watchmaking business in Les Bois in the Swiss Jura in 1830, and built a substantial export operation through a London office. The company won significant honours at nineteenth-century observatory trials, including a record for a chronograph tourbillon at Kew that stood for years.

The modern company dates from 1918, when William Baume partnered with Paul Mercier in Geneva. Mercier brought design sensibility, and the house's Art Deco pieces of the 1920s — shaped cases, jewelled dials, and the Phi emblem representing the golden ratio — established a decorative direction it has largely kept.

Baume & Mercier was among the founding members of the Geneva Seal system and produced complications including minute repeaters and perpetual calendars in its earlier decades.

Its modern position is deliberately accessible: classical Swiss watchmaking at prices below the group's luxury tier, with the Clifton, Riviera, and Hampton collections covering round dress watches, integrated-bracelet sports watches, and rectangular Art Deco shapes respectively. The Riviera, introduced in 1973, was among the first steel luxury sports watches with an integrated bracelet, arriving a year after the Royal Oak.

The house has been part of Richemont since the group's formation, and produces around two hundred thousand watches annually.

Baume & Mercier holds 39 models, from £850 to £4,450. Half cost less than £2,130, and a quarter less than £1,550. 16 of 39 are automatic. Prices are checked nightly against the retailers’ own feeds.

1830

The Baume brothers begin watchmaking in Les Bois.

1892

A Kew observatory record is set with a chronograph tourbillon.

1918

William Baume and Paul Mercier partner in Geneva.

1973

The twelve-sided Riviera launches.