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Joël Pynson
July 2025
Jacob Kobel registered the Elida trademark in 1910 and founded the Manufacture d’Horlogerie Elida in Fleurier the following year [1].
The company manufactures its own movements and specializes in wristwatches.
1914
1915
In 1916, Jakob Kobel joined forces with Urbain Bilat and the company became Elida Watch Co., Kobel and Bila [2]. The number of calibers increased rapidly.
1916
1917
In 1917, Elida opened a branch in Sonvilier for watch finishing, but it was closed two years later.
1920
1921
1927
1930
Due to the severe crisis of the 1920s, the company ran into difficulties and went bankrupt in 1931 [3], but was relaunched the same year under the name Nouvelle Fabrique d’Horlogerie de la Montre Elida, with Ernest Klemmer and Georges Guye on the board of directors [3]. Production of elegant watches was relaunched, and the company won a silver medal for this type of watch at the 1929 International Exhibition in Barcelona.
1930
1933
In the 1940s, Elida was a general manufacturer. In 1943, the directors were Paul Guye and Jakob Kobel,
1949
1941
1957
In 1961, the company changed owners: Paul Ruprecht took over the management of the company [4] and moved it to Neuchâtel [4].
However, due to a lack of distinctive models and promotional investment, the company went bankrupt in 1964 [5].
[1] FOSC 1912
[2] FOSC 1916
[3] FOSC 1931
[4] FOSC 1961
|5] FOSC 1964
The FOSC (Swiss Official Gazette of 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 around 30 years and continues to be updated with around 50 to 100 GB of data each year. The database consists of historical documents, mainly Swiss trade journals, dating from the late 19th century to the late 20th century. Most of these documents are not available on the Internet. The historical articles published on the time2tell.com website always cite the sources used.
Time To Tell is a private company, independent of any watch manufacturer.
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