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Joël Pynson
February 2025
Update: March 2025, January 2026
1. Creation at Le Noirmont
Charles and Léon Maître founded their Maître frères watchmaking factory in Le Noirmont in 1891 [1], but in the end the year 1890 was officially chosen.
1901
Charles Maître died in 1909 and Léon, left alone, changed the company name to L. Maître. Four years later the company became Fabrique d'horlogerie Pronto [2].
1914
1917
The factory makes its own movements, the watches are of good quality, and Pronto exports its watches all over the world.
1919
1920
2. Second generation
In 1923, Maurice, Léon fils and Marcel, all sons of Léon Maître, joined forces with their father and the company became L. Maitre & Fils [3]. In 1928, the company became a S.A. and added Manufacture d'horlogerie Pronto to its name.
Over the years, Pronto has adapted to the demands of different markets: jumping-hour watches in 1931, water-resistant watches in 1933, chronographs in 1936, calendar watches, automatic watches, etc.
1921
1926
1925
1928
1931
1934
1936
1936
1940
1943
1945
1947
At the end of the 1940s, Pronto began giving names to its models, which have since multiplied: Datograf, Pronto-Master, Vampire, Solodate, and so on. Of these, it was probably the Tropic-Master model, first produced in 1956, that did most to make the company famous.
1946
1949
3. Third generation
In 1961, Maurice Maître's sons joined the Board of Directors. They were Maurice Junior, Robert, Emmanuel and Joseph [4].
The company flourished, producing one model after another and exporting to almost 50 countries [5].
Pronto celebrates its 75th anniversary in 1965, with several anniversary models.
1965
1969
The "quartz crisis" hit Pronto like so many other Swiss watchmaking companies. Encouraged by the Fédération horlogère, Pronto joined forces with other manufacturers in 1974 to create Sipra SA, which grouped together Pronto, Buttes Watch, Delvina and Milus [6].
1974
1981
Pronto launched quartz watches and attempted to move upmarket, with the creation of the Léon Maître range, and a return to mechanical watches in the early 1990s, but the company went bankrupt in 1999 [7].
The Pronto brand was taken over by the Chinese company Stelux [8]. Today (February 2025) it is an empty shell.
The article on the main Pronto watch models can be found here.
[1] FOSC 1891
[2] FOSC 1913
[3] FOSC 1923
[4] FOSC 1961
[5] Journal Suisse d'Horlogerie, 1966, 1, p. 162
[6] La Suisse Horlogère, weekly edition, 1974, 3, p. 73
[7] SOGC 1999
[8] http://www.stelux.com/eng/ir/report/annual2022/annual2022_16.pdf
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 :
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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