Longines Watch

The history of Longines goes back to 1832 when Auguste Agassiz started making watches in the watch making district of St Imier in Switzerland, under his company name Agassiz & Cie. 1854 Agassiz handed over running of the company to his nephew Ernest Francillon. Francillon decided that the traditional method of watch making, by which different parts of the watch were made by different craftsman around the local area, was not good enough in consistancy of quality and output. Keen on making all the watch components under one roof he built a factory in St Imier at a place called Les Longines (Long Meadow).

Francillion was a pioneer by nature, keen to expand on what was technically possible. The first chronograph Longines produced was in 1879, it then went on to produce the first automatic time keeping device in 1912. This wire cutting device, where an athlete broke a tape at the beginning and the end of the race, was a vast improvement over human error of using a chronograph. From this early start the name Longines has been assocciated with the big sporting events such as the Olympics and the forumula one for a long time.

In 1932 Longines made the first Lindbergh wrist watch, a watch that tells time in degrees of an arc such that reading longitude is made easier. Longines continues to make the Lindbergh range of avaitor watches today. 1969 Longines were responsible for the first quartz cybernetic wristwatch, then 3 years later in 1972 Longines produced the LCD watch with the aid of Ebauches SA and Texas Instruments.
The history of development continues with Longines, as it makes quite a few specialist watches. This includes the Conquest VHP, a wristwatch with accuracy of one minute in five years (five to ten times more accurate than the standard quartz wristwach). Also the conquest 1000 Oe which is resistant to strong magnetic fields (The level of which is only experienced by doctors, scientests or people whose work entails strong magnetic fields).

Longines continues to meet the requirements of the new century with its continual striving for precision. It also produces a wide range of precision watches for the ordinary person.

The same top brands as Longines are Rolex,Omega, Patek Philippe,U-Boat,Richard Mille,Porsche Design,Tag Heuer,Breitling and Bell&Ross.