Antiques: International Watch Company makes Swiss watches with an American twist
Time rolls by, and so does the summer heat. While I never believed it when I was young, time does goes faster as you get older. I suspect many of you out there would agree.
Because we haven't explored time for a while, let's take it up again today. The International Watch Company, better known to most as IWC, is another one of those premium-quality Swiss makers, but with an American twist. While ownership of the firm has long passed to a corporate parent, their website continues to boast such politically correct themes as Community and Sustainability. Those sensibilities aside, they've been around for a century and a half and still make a helluva watch.
Let's turn back the clock.
As it happened, an American with the decidedly imported name of Florentine Ariosto Jones founded IWC in 1868. Born in new Hampshire in 1841, he served as a Union soldier during the Civil War and thereafter joined the E. Howard watch company.
Florentine was evidently a man in a hurry. After rising quickly to superintendent at what then was the nation's premier watchmaking firm, he recognized that the American system of using interchangeable parts in manufacturing was far better than the European method of building one watch at a time. Following two years at Howard, he moved to Switzerland and opened IWC.
After searching for a proper site to open his factory, he chose Schaffausen, an ancient Swiss town along the Rhine River near the border of Germany. Known primarily for its wine, Schaffausen also had the hydro-power necessary to drive Jones' watchmaking equipment. At the time, the Swiss watchmaking industry was set in its ways and disinclined to adopt many of Jones' innovations. Nonetheless, he persevered, and after nine years, he sold the firm and returned to America. He had left his mark.
For a few years the company was unsettled, but in 1880, a local family of industrialists emerged and acquired ownership of the firm. For the next 98 years, the Rauschenbach clan operated IWC, expanding its distribution throughout the world and introducing key innovations that resonated throughout the industry.
In 1884, the company introduced the Pallweber pocket watch that featured a numeric rather than circular dial. Time was displayed via rotating numbers on a mechanical rotor, eliminating the need for watch hands. Some 20,000 of these timepieces were manufactured during the first half of the 1890s and helped move IWC towards the forefront of the watchmaking world.
Other landmarks were to follow. In 1936, IWC introduced a Special Pilot's Watch, a timepiece combining an unusually large housing and dial with a high-precision pocket watch movement. Pilots of the day had their hands full just flying their flimsy aircraft and had no time to pull out a pocket watch or squint at a tiny dial. In addition, most wore heavy leather jackets to remain warm, and a watch large enough to strap over a bulky sleeve was a useful thing indeed.
IWC's design was widely copied and became a standard accessory among pilots during WWII. Following the war, IWC continued its innovative ways with the introduction of a self-winding movement along with a unique anti-magnetic feature during the 1950s.
Despite their past successes, IWC was hard hit by the introduction of low-cost quartz watches in the early 1970s and in 1978 was sold and then resold again. Innovations continued despite the changes in ownership, and the late '70s were highlighted by the introduction of the iconic Porsche Design series of watches.
All kinds of things have followed, including a series of premium lines introduced in conjunction with the company's 150th anniversary in 2018. IWC remains in business to this day: still innovating, still Swiss-made, still regarded as among the best you can buy. You can't do much better.
Mike Rivkin and his wife, Linda, are longtime residents of Rancho Mirage. For many years, he was an award-winning catalogue publisher and has authored seven books, along with countless articles. Now, he's the owner of Antique Galleries of Palm Springs. His antiques column appears Sundays in The Desert Sun. Want to send Mike a question about antiques? Drop him a line at info@silverfishpress.com
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Antiques: IWC makes Swiss watches with an American twist
