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The true story of Excelsior Park

The true story of Excelsior Park

Excelsior Park

Excelsior Park, a major company in the field of counters and chronographs.

Description

Joël Pynson

First version: June 2009

Update : January 2025

The Jeanneret name is associated with no less than 5 St Imier watchmaking companies: Moeris, Léonidas, Junior, Excelsior Park and Jules-Fred. Jeanneret. In this article, we take a look at Excelsior Park, a leading company in the field of counters and chronographs.

  

1. Originally by Jules-Frédéric Jeanneret

Jules-Frédéric Jeanneret set up a watchmaking factory in St Imier in 1866. He then went into partnership with his brother-in-law Fritz Thalmann under the name Thalmannn, Jeanneret & Cie [1].

In 1883 the company was called Jeanneret & Fils, so Jules-Frédéric was associated at this time with one or more of his sons [2].

In 1886, 3 of Jules-Frédéric's sons (Albert, Henri and Constant) set up their own company, which they named Usine à vapeur du Parc, Alb. Jeanneret & frères. Jules-Frédéric remains alone under the name Jules Fc. Jeanneret [3]. From then on, the two companies followed separate destinies.

  

1890

2. Albert Jeanneret et frères

Like their father, the Jeanneret brothers were interested in chronographs and counters. In 1891, they filed a patent for a counter [4], with a detail that was to become one of the Manufacture's signatures: a bridge in the shape of a J, the first letter of their name.

 

But in 1893, Albert left the company and joined forces with Fritz Moeri-Thalmann to create the Moeri & Jeanneret factory, which later became Moeris [5].

Albert Jeanneret & Frères then became Jeanneret Frères, Usine du Parc.

  

3. Jeanneret Frères, Usine du Parc

In 1893, the Jeanneret brothers took over patent 3364 and the Excelsior trademark, previously registered by Albert, which became the trademark reserved for counters.

  

1896

The factory also produces chronographs under the Colombe brand and simple watches under the Diana and Cervin brands. It wins a gold medal at the Brussels International Exhibition in 1897.

In 1901, Constant left the company to join his father-in-law, who ran the Manufacture Junior [6]. Henri was left alone, and the company was renamed Jeanneret-Brehm successeur de Jeanneret frères, Usine du Parc [7].

 

4. Jeanneret-Brehm

1902

1908

Around 1902, Jeanneret Frères launched a chronograph with only 13 lines. At the same time, the company owned by the same family, Vve de Jules-Frédéric Jeanneret, also produced a 13-line caliber. Perhaps it is in fact the same, or with a variant. As chronographs from this period are not signed, it is very difficult to answer this question today. But in both cases, it's quite possible that these calibers were used to make the first Swiss wrist chronographs.

To complete its range of watches, the Jeanneret-Brehm company joined forces in 1910 with the H. Magnenat-Lecoultre, founded in 1887 at Le Sentier in the Vallée de Joux. The factory specialized in repeating watches, with or without chronographs.

  

1902

The company changed its name to Jeanneret-Brehm & Cie, Speedway Watch Co [8].

  

5. Jeanneret-Brehm & Cie

The new company now sells its counters under the Excelsior brand, its chronographs under the Colombe brand and its repeaters under the Le Risoud brand.

 

1911

The Excelsior Park trademark was registered in 1912 [9].

  

1916

In 1916, Henri's sons Robert-Henri and Edmond took over the company under the name Les fils de Jeanneret-Brehm, Excelsior Park and Speedway Watch Co.

  

6. Les Fils de Jeanneret-Brehm, Excelsior Park

In the early 1920s, as repeating watches fell out of favor, Excelsior Park refocused exclusively on counters and chronographs. The company was run by "Messrs R.-H. and Ed. Jeanneret. One of them, a graduate of the Technicum de La Chaux-de-Fonds, is both a sportsman and very knowledgeable about race timing. Often called upon to act as official timekeeper, he has built devices that have been favorably received everywhere. Most of them, moreover, have been officially adopted by Swiss or international federations [10]."

  

1922

In 1922, Excelsior Parc had a range of 32 different counters: tachometers, pulsometers, split-seconds, anchor or Roskopf calibers, for soccer, rugby, water polo, field hockey, with a boxing bell, a control watch with a rotating bezel, which was original for the time, a Taylor counter for production calculations, and the Electro-pointer built in collaboration with Mr. Chaponnière, then official timekeeper of the Automobile-Club de Suisse.

  

1922

That year, on May 24 to be precise, Excelsior Park patented a small housing inside a movement to hold spare parts [11]. This would also become a trademark, instantly identifying an Excelsior Park movement. The idea was copied, however, by Leonidas and Berna in particular, and Excelsior Park had to assert its rights through the press.

 

1929

1933

In 1925 Excelsior Park claimed the title of leading Swiss manufacturer of sports counters. The range was further extended to include counters for canoeing, motor sports, decimal time counters, and others measuring to one hundredth of a second with the hand making one revolution per second.

  

Around 1929, a series of beautifully crafted new chronograph movements is launched, with 18 to 22 lines. They include spare parts for refurbishing.

  

1938

A turning point came in 1938 with the creation of the 12/13-line chronograph caliber for wristwatches. It was a fine movement that, with its variants, would be produced for almost 40 years. Shaped chronograph calibers are very few and far between: the Landeron 11 from the early 1930s, Invicta's Chrono-Sport from 1932, and a rare rectangular Movado chronograph in a Reverso case from around 1939 seem to be the only ones.

  

1938

 

At first, the movement was simply called 12/13, but later it was christened caliber 42. From the outset, it was available with 1 or 2 pushers and with 30 or 45-minute counters.

A few years later, a classic, round version of this movement appeared, christened caliber 4, and a version with a caliber 4 hour counter, under the name 42.

But if this movement was so widespread, it wasn't just used by Excelsior Park. Three other companies used it: Gallet, Zenith and Girard Perregaux.

- Gallet had a strong presence in the United States, where watches were sold under the Gallet and Racine brand names. Gallet counters were equipped with Excelsior Park calibers. For chronographs, Gallet used Excelsior Park calibers and calibers from the Ébauches SA trust (Vénus and Valjoux in particular).

- At the time of the creation of the Swiss watchmaking trusts in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Zenith chose to remain a manufacture, and thus to continue producing its own calibers. Because of its watchmaking status, the company could not use Ébauches SA calibers (Vénus, Landeron, and Valjoux from 1944). To make its first wrist chronographs, in 1938 Zenith turned to Excelsior Park, which was also a manufacture, and used the caliber 42. Later, as a result of the relationship between Zenith and Universal, Zenith would also use Universal/Martel calibers for its chronographs [13].

  

1938

- Girard-Perregaux, which had been acquired by Mimo in 1930, had no chronograph caliber, apart from the Stop-en-vol caliber of the 1936 Mimolympic model. As a manufacture, Girard-Perregaux was in the same situation as Zenith, but Girard-Perregaux had used Valjoux calibers for its chronographs before Valjoux integrated Ébauches SA in 1944, enabling it to continue using them. Later, Girard-Perregaux used Universal calibers, but Universal was bought by Bulova in 1966, so Girard-Perregaux turned to Excelsior Park, in particular for the 1968 Olimpico model.

  

In 1939, Robert Jeanneret's son Robert-Edmond joined the board of directors of his father's company [14]. He represents the 4th generation of the Jeanneret family.

Based on the caliber 4, Excelsior Park launched a surprising orientation hand chronograph around 1945, which the company recommended to military paratroopers! This chronograph was also marketed by Gallet and Zenith, who called it Sextant.

 

 

1945

After the 2nd World War, Excelsior Park continued to manufacture chronographs and counters.

In 1951, Edmond Jeanneret retired, and in 1956 Robert-Edmond took over the management of the company.

The design of the chronographs was modernized, and from the early 1950s, the Excelsior Park brand appeared more and more on the dials, whereas previously the dials had often been anonymous.

  

1957

In 1964 Excelsior Park won first prize at the Swiss National Exhibition in Lausanne, for a productivity counter indicating both the time taken for each operation and the accumulated duration of the total number of operations [15].

  

In the early 1960s, worldwide sales of Swiss chronographs were in decline. With the support of the Fédération Horlogère, the main chronograph manufacturers decided to launch a promotional campaign, reinforced by the launch of new models [16]. Excelsior Park launched the Yachting model. This chronograph, designed for timing regatta starts, features a minute counter with an offset zero to better read the last 15 minutes of the start.

 

The promotional campaign had a spectacular effect on Swiss chronograph sales. From the late 1960s onwards, Excelsior Park launched a series of chronographs and counters with remarkable models such as the diver's chronograph and theExcel-O-Graph.

  

1969

1971

But Excelsior Park couldn't withstand the "quartz crisis" that began in 1975. For one thing, the company had no automatic chronograph, and did not use the Valjoux 7750 available from 1973. On the other hand, it was too small to develop quartz chronograph modules. The first difficulties began with the fall of the dollar, at a time when the American market was the most important [17]. The market for counters then dried up, with strong competition from other manufacturers, Heuer in particular, and then came quartz counters, which spelled the end for the company.

The company closed its doors in 1983.

In 1984, Gallet-Guinand in La Chaux de Fonds took over the counters, while the chronographs were taken over by Revue-Thommen [18].

  

The Excelsior Park brand was taken over by the Fume company in Germany, and numerous chronograph models were launched, with Valjoux and Lémania calibers.

  

1988

But this recovery was to be short-lived.

  

7. Main Excelsior Park chronograph models

- Excelsior Park 12/13

This shaped caliber, launched in 1938, was used to produce chronographs, often anonymous, that are interesting in more ways than one. For example, the tachometric and other scales are not on the dial, but on a flange under the crystal, a feature described in the 1938 advertisements as follows: "To facilitate reading of the dial on this small chronograph, part of the division has been placed on the inclined flange of the bezel, below the crystal. This patented invention also makes it possible to transform a telemeter chronograph, for example, into a tachometer or pulsometer by simply changing the bezel flange".

This arrangement, patented [19], can also be combined with a rotating bezel.

  

But this type of indication under the glass was nothing new. In fact, this particular feature can be found on a patent registered in Switzerland two years earlier [20] by Henri Chevassus, the French watchmaker behind a rare CAR chronograph.

  

- Excelsior Park "Paratrooper"

 

This remarkable chronograph is described in detail here.

- Excelsior Park Plongeur

This superb all-steel chronograph with rotating bezel is called a "diver's chronograph" by Excelsior Park (ref. 5415). It was launched around 1968. It is best known for having been marketed by Girard-Perregaux, model Olimpico, but can also be found under the names Excelsior Park and Zivy, the company that distributed Excelsior Park counters and chronographs in France.

The caliber used for this chronograph is the 42, with hour counter.

  

- Excel-O-Graph

 

This all-steel chronograph, launched around 1971, features a rotating bezel with slide rule. The movement is the Excelsior Park 42 caliber.

  

Note: the brand was reactivated in the 21st century to produce watches with Chinese and Swiss parts. This company has taken over part of this article: it's plagiarism in defiance of copyright.

Acknowledgements: This article benefited from the expert advice of Sébastien Chaulmontet. For illustrations, special thanks to Sébastien Chaulmontet, Edi Zumbach, Klaus Zimmerman, Gerd-R. Lang, Christian Pfeiffer-Belli and Antoine Simonin. Most archive documents were consulted at the Musée International d'Horlogerie in La Chaux-de-Fonds. Special thanks to Jean-Michel Piguet for his help with iconography at the MIH.

 

 

[1] http://www.diju.ch/f/notices/detail/8111

[2] FOSC 1883

[3] FOSC 1886

[4] Brevet CH 3364

[5] FOSC 1893

[6] FOSC 1902

[7] FOSC 1901

[8] FOSC 1910

[9] FOSC 1912

[10] Revue Internationale de l'Horlogerie, 1922, pp. 345-346

[11] Brevet CH 100 230

[12] Brevet CH 207 550

[13] https://www.time2tell.com/fr/histoire-des-marques/26-la-veritable-histoire-de-perret-berthoud-manufacture-des-montres-universal-1ere-partie-l-historique.html

[14] FOSC 1939

[15] Journal Suisse d’Horlogerie, 1964, 3, p. 424

[16] Joël Pynson, La montre-bracelet suisse, Editions Time To Tell, 2024, pp. 303-308

[17] L’Impartial, 31 mars 1983, p. 15

[18] L’Impartial, 19 juin 1984, p. 7

[19] Brevet CH 207 550

[20] Brevet CH 192 885

 

The archives of Fédération Horlogère, Davoine and l'Impartial are available online at www.doc.rero.ch

The archives of Journal Suisse d'Horlogerie, Europa Star, Revue Internationale d'Horlogerie and Suisse Horlogère are available at The Watch Library

The FOSC (Feuille Officielle Suisse du Commerce) is available on E-periodica

Notes :

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