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Joël Pynson
July 2025
1. The Scheidegger-Bourquin family
Oscar Scheidegger and his wife Léa Bourquin set up their watchmaking factory in La Heutte in 1918. The Zila trademark was registered in 1922 [1].
In 1927, the company became Fabrique de montres Zila [2].
Zila is a Manufacture, which makes its own calibers, in particular shaped calibers and double-barrel calibers with 8-day power reserve, enabling the launch of remarkable watches, including 8-day calendar watches.
1928
1931
1932
From the 1940s onwards, models became more classic but still of good quality.
1941
1943
1952
When Oscar Scheidegger died in 1952, the company was taken over by the Schwizgebel family [3].
2. The Schwizgebel family
Roland-Louis and Charlotte Schwizgebel took over the Fabrique de montres Zila, and gave it new impetus with new models to which they gave names.
The Watermaster model, for example, launched around 1954, existed with several case and dial shapes.
1955
1956
One of the most interesting models is the Astronaut, launched in 1957. It was a 24h display watch with jumping seconds (also known as deadbeat seconds), and a stop seconds system. Its features were as follows:
- Separate and distinct "a.m." (anti meridian) and "p.m." (post meridian) hour indications
- instant reading of international standard time
- jumping center seconds
- center stop seconds device (one press of the crown and the seconds hand stops)
- pulling the crown stops the entire movement (the seconds hand is then automatically set by simply pressing the crown back to its normal position)
3. The decline
In 1960, Armand Hissarli became Chairman of the Board [4]. The following year, he created Montres Governor and marketed watches under the Hislon and Nacar names, two trademarks registered by Zila.
1966
The Zila brand no longer seems to be used, and the Zila company went bankrupt in 1998 [5]. Montres Governor disappeared in 2004 [6].
[1] FOSC 1922
[2] FOSC 1927
[3] FOSC 1952
[4] FOSC 1960
[5] FOSC 1998
[6] FOSC 2004
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, mostly Swiss trade magazines, dating from the late 19th to the late 20th century. Most of these documents are not available on the Internet. Historical articles published on time2tell.com always cite the sources used.
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