Longines

Auguste Agassiz began trading watches in Saint-Imier in 1832, but the modern company dates from 1860, when his nephew Ernest Francillon built a factory in the meadows beside the Suze — the longines of the local dialect — and consolidated the scattered outworkers of the region under one roof.

Longines registered its winged hourglass in 1889. It is the oldest watch trademark still in continuous use.

The company's identity was built on precision and on timing things in public. It supplied chronographs for the first modern Olympic events it timed in 1896, timed the 1912 Federal Gymnastics Festival with a broken-wire mechanism accurate to a hundredth of a second, and developed the photo-finish camera and the quartz timing devices used across twentieth-century athletics.

Its aviation associations are equally deep. Longines instruments were carried by Charles Lindbergh across the Atlantic in 1927, and the Hour Angle watch, designed to Lindbergh's own specification to simplify longitude calculation, remains in the catalogue. Amelia Earhart and Howard Hughes both navigated by Longines.

The house was among the most decorated at nineteenth-century observatory trials, holding numerous precision records. Since joining the Swatch Group in 1983 it has occupied the accessible-heritage position: exclusive ETA-based movements, archive-driven designs through the Heritage line, and volume that makes it one of the group's most important brands.

Longines holds 307 models, from £750 to £22,850. Half cost less than £2,350, and a quarter less than £1,700. 210 of 307 are automatic. 231 are stocked by more than one retailer, giving 544 offers in total. Prices are checked nightly against the retailers’ own feeds.

1860

Ernest Francillon builds the factory at Les Longines.

1889

The winged hourglass is registered — the oldest watch trademark in use.

1912

Broken-wire timing achieves hundredth-second accuracy.

1927

Lindbergh crosses the Atlantic with Longines instruments.

1983

Becomes part of the Swatch Group.