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Joel Pynson
October 2024
Update : November 2024
1. From Borel & Courvoisier to Ernest Borel & Co.
Jules Borel
Jules Borel and Paul Courvoisier founded their company in Neuchâtel in 1859. In fact, the business could be traced back to an earlier date, since the two partners took over the comptoir of Henri Reynier fils, already active in the city [1]. The Borel & Courvoisier factory is a comptoir, meaning that the parts needed to make the watches come from different parts of Switzerland, and even France, and are "finished" at the comptoir. Thanks to customers inherited from Reynier fils, the company immediately began exporting to many countries, particularly the USA and China.
Borel & Courvoisier were extremely sensitive to the precision of their watches: as early as 1866, a company chronometer won first prize in the Neuchâtel Observatory competition.
In 1894, Paul Courvoisier retired from the company and Ernest Borel, son of the founder, joined his father [2].
Ernest Borel
In 1898, Jules Borel died. The company changed its name to Ernest Borel et Cie, successors to Borel-Courvoisier [3]. The partners were Ernest Borel, Sophie Borel-Courvoisier, widow of Jules, Adamir Debrot, a remarkable technician who remained with the company for over 50 years, and Siber Brennwald & Cie of Zurich, distributor of Borel watches in Asia.
Little is known about Ernest Borel & Cie's watches in the early 20th century. Not being a manufacturer, the company produced watches with a variety of movements that are difficult to authenticate today.
Jean-Louis Borel
Things began to change in the late 1920s. In 1926, Siber Brennwald & Cie, now Siber, Hegner et Cie, left the board, and Ernest Borel's son Jean-Louis joined the company [4]. Gradually, under the Elbro and Hermes brand names, the company freed itself from its heavy dependence on the Asian market by modernizing its manufacturing and launching numerous models of pocket watches and wristwatches, and from 1936 even sports counters [5].
From 1940, watches could be signed Borel, then E. Borel. Co, a registered trademark since 1945. The ranges are very comprehensive, with water-resistant, automatic, calendar, chronograph and jewelry watches.
1943
1945
In 1943, Ernest Borel called on the renowned illustrator René Bleuer for a series of advertisements that have become classics. René Bleuer worked with many watch companies in the 1940s and 1950s [6]. It was perhaps Bleuer who came up with the idea of a graphic representation of a couple where the woman admires her companion's watch [7]. Declined in multiple versions, the one depicting a couple dressed as in the 19th century finally became a registered trademark in 1946.
2. Ernest Borel chronometers
1945
Chronometry remains an asset for the company. A 1946 document specifies that the following marks are used on the dials [8]:
- standard quality: Ernest Borel Neuchâtel
- super quality: Ernest Borel
- precision quality with an official power bulletin: Ernest Borel Chronomètre
That year, Ernest Borel received 1,064 official reports, making the company second only to Rolex in Switzerland for series production of chronometers.
In 1947, Ernest Borel inaugurated a new factory in Neuchâtel, on the Route de Bienne [9]. Modern, bright and luminous, equipped with the latest watchmaking and testing equipment, it bears the inscription Chronomètres Ernest Borel on its façade.
These successes in the Official Control Offices were also linked to technical improvements pioneered by Ernest Borel. These included improvements to the regulating system, with the use of a new balance wheel [10], and above all the Incastar regulating system, without a ratchet, which operated simply by lengthening or shortening the balance spring and had no influence on position adjustment. This was the brainchild of Fritz Marti, inventor of the Incabloc [11].
1948
Ernest Borel obtained several thousand chronometer bulletins in the 1950s and 1960s, and even won a series prize for the 4 best wrist chronometers at the Neuchâtel Observatory competition in 1959 [12], 1960 and 1962.
3. Ernest Borel's golden age: 1945-1968
Like many Swiss manufacturers, after the 2nd World War Ernest Borel gave names to some of his models to facilitate promotion. The first of these models was the Rendez-Vous in 1946, and many others followed: Sahara, Sea Gem, Cocktail, Datoptic, Society, Flash, Deauville, Monaco, Space Gem, etc.
This was Henry DuPasquier 's arrival at the company [13]. Having joined the company as an executive assistant, he quickly assimilated the subtleties of watchmaking and proved to be an exceptional inventor and creative thinker. For example, he was responsible for the Cocktail model, launched in 1953, with its world-famous changing dial, the Monaco model with its asymmetrical case, and the highly successful Versailles and Cor de Chasse clocks.
With the end of the statut horloger, which had protected the Swiss watchmaking industry since the 1930s, Swiss manufacturers faced stiff competition from abroad in the early 1960s. This marked the beginning of company mergers, with the aim of pooling resources and skills. MSR (Manufactures Suisses d'Horlogerie), for example, which brings together Thommen, Vulcain, Buser and Phénix, was created in 1961.
ASUAG favored these company groupings, and in 1966 created Chronos Holding [14] with this objective in mind. Between 1966 and 1969, Chronos Holding acquired Cyma, Ernest Borel and Doxa, and brought them together under the holding company Synchron SA. Jean-Louis Borel was appointed Chairman [15].
4. Synchron period and quartz crisis
Synchron's organization was quickly put in place. The administrative center was located in Neuchâtel, on Ernest Borel's premises, while watch manufacturing was carried out in Le Locle, on Doxa's premises, for the entire group [16]. The ranges are divided among the different brands as follows: Cyma for precision watches, Ernest Borel for designer watches, with the Cocktail model, for example, being brought up to date, and Doxa for sports watches. In 1970, the group produced 250,000 watches and alarm clocks [17].
1973
Synchron got off to a good start: sales increased steadily, and thanks to Ébauches SA, the group launched quartz watches in 1973, as well as a range of Conquistador economic automatic watches, and jewelry watches [18]. In the same year, Synchron absorbed Compagnie des Montres Auréole SA in La Chaux-de-Fonds, with the aim of producing 1 million pieces.
But from 1975 onwards, things quickly went from bad to worse. Unable to withstand the dramatic fall in the price of American quartz watches, and the rise of the Swiss franc against the dollar and other currencies, the Swiss watchmaking industry suffered one of the worst crises in its history [19]. Many companies disappeared or were taken over.
In 1978, Synchron SA went into liquidation. The Aubry Frères group took over the brands and set about relaunching them.
5. Aubry Frères period
Aubry Frères was founded in 1920 in Le Noirmont, in the Franches-Montagnes, by Marc and Henri Aubry [20]. As the brothers' father had already been in business since 1917, this date will ultimately be considered as the founding date. Under the Ciny brand, the company had made a name for itself respected the world over.
Marcel Aubry, son of one of the company's founders, enthusiastically took over the reins and embarked on an expansionist phase, acquiring Arthur Dorsaz et Cie ( Dogma watches) in 1972, and Société des Montres West End in 1973. And in 1978, Aubry Frères took over the Ernest Borel, Doxa and Auréole brands [21].
1991
Despite commendable attempts to revive the West End and Ernest Borel brands, Aubry Frères ran into difficulties in the late 1980s, and its Asian distributor, Hong Kong Truly, had to support the company financially. He finally took control in 1997.
2013
See also: Aubry Frères-Ciny (coming soon) and the current Ernest Borel website
The article on the main Ernest Borel watch models can be found here
|1] Journal Suisse d'Horlogerie, 1944, 7-8, pp. 267-271
[2] FOSC 1894
[3] FOSC 1898
[4] FOSC 1926
[5] Revue Internationale d'Horlogerie, 1936, 20, p. 275
[6] Joel Pynson, René Bleuer, Charles Lemmel et l'âge d'or de la publicité horlogère des années 1940, Horlogerie Ancienne (AFAHA), 2020, 88, pp. 70-83
[7] And not a dancing couple, as we sometimes read
[8] Journal Suisse d'Horlogerie, 1946, 9-10, p. 14
[9] Journal Suisse d'Horlogerie, 1947, 11-12, pp. 533-536
[10] Patent Ébauches SA CH 227189 of 1942
[11] Patent CH 251174 of 1945
[12] La Suisse Horlogère, weekly edition, 1960, 8, p. 157
[13] Europa Star, 1965, 31, pp. 92-98
[14] Journal Suisse d'Horlogerie, 1966, 4, p. 471
[15] La Suisse Horlogère, weekly edition, 1969, 4, p. 102
[16] La Suisse Horlogère, 1970, 46, p. 1772
[17] La Suisse Horlogère, weekly edition, 1972, 9, p. 230
[18] La Suisse Horlogère, weekly edition, 1973, 6, p. 154
[19] Joel Pynson, La " crise du quartz " et l'horlogerie suisse, Chronométrophilia, 2021, 88, pp. 97-116
[20] FOSC 1920
[21] The Cyma brand was taken over by Claude Guilgot (Fabrique Delvina in Geneva).
Notes :
About Time To Tell: Time To Tell has one of the largest private digitized databases on the history of Swiss watchmaking, with over 2.3 TB of data on more than 1,000 Swiss watch manufacturers. This database has been built up over a period of some thirty years, and continues to be fed with around 50 to 100 GB of data every year. The database is made up of old documents, mainly Swiss trade journals, dating from the late 19th to the late 20th century. Most of these documents are not available on the Internet. Historical articles published on the time2tell.com website always cite the sources used.
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