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Joël Pynson
September 2025
1. Perfecta, Hélios and Gilbert Schaldenbrand
The origins of Perfecta, whose history can be found here, can be traced back to the E. Simon & Cie watchmaking factory, founded in 1882.
In 1889, the company became Simon, Burger & Cressot, and several trademarks were registered, including Helios in 1893 and Perfecta in 1902.
Later renamed Usines Perfecta SA, the company went bankrupt in 1921 during the crisis that followed World War I. It was taken over in 1923 by Jules Prétat under the name Jules Prétat, Manufacture d'Horlogerie Perfecta in Porrentruy, then in 1931 Perfecta SA Manufacture d'Horlogerie.
But in 1938, the Helios and Perfecta brands were transferred to Gilbert-Emile Schaldenbrand, who set up the Hélios watch factory in Porrentruy [8].
Gilbert Schaldenbrand was a prominent figure in Porrentruy. In the early 1930s, he was already involved in two watchmaking companies in Porrentruy: Société anonyme des montres Eros and Société horlogère de Porrentruy, Phenix Watch Co.
In 1938, he left these two companies, acquired the Hélios and Perfecta brands, and founded the Gilbert E. Schaldenbrand company, Hélios watch factory, in Porrentruy [1].
2. The Hélios watch factory
In 1940, Hélios became Fabrique d’horlogerie Hélios SA [2]. At that time, it was a generalist manufacturer offering watches based on Ébauches SA movements, with simple models for men and women.
1945
1946
1946
1947
In 1947, Gilbert Schaldenbrand left the Helios factory and was replaced by Paul Calame, then in 1955 by Erich Kocher [3].
The factory continued its activity using several brands, including Helios and Perfecta.
1961
The Kocher family continued to run the company thereafter, but in 1996 the company moved to Solothurn [4], and in 2001 became a financial company under the name Swiss Credit Trust [5].
See also: Perfecta, Precimax, Phenix
[1] FOSC 1938
[2] FOSC 1940
[3] FOSC 1947 et 1955
[4] FOSC 1996
[5] FOSC 2001
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 old 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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