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Joël Pynson
October 2025
1. From La Chaux-de-Fonds to Neuchâtel
Henri Vuilleumier and Humbert Miserez founded their watchmaking company, Montres Exactus, in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1945 [1].
But barely five years later, the company was taken over by Paul Walter, who ran the Precimax factory in Neuchâtel [2].
Exactus was then transferred to Neuchâtel.
2. Precimax and Exactus
The two companies, Precimax and Exactus, based in Neuchâtel, will follow parallel but separate paths. It is difficult to find any difference between the two ranges of watches: both brands offer automatic watches, waterproof watches, alarm watches, and chronographs.
1952
1953
1955
From his experience with Solvil & Titus, Paul Walter knew that Geneva was the place to find the international clientele that would help his business grow.
Around 1956, he set up a sales office there in a beautiful building on Place St Gervais, on the banks of the Rhône [3]. Precimax and Exactus thus also became a Geneva brand.
1957
1958
The company gained new momentum with the launch of numerous models, particularly beautiful automatic watches and diving watches. This creative momentum peaked in the late 1960s and early 1970s, particularly with beautiful diving watches.
1963
1965
1966
1971
Like many other Swiss watch manufacturers, Exactus attempted to move upmarket in the early 1980s in order to sell more luxurious watches and avoid getting caught up in a price war. To achieve this, Paul Walter called on designer Constantin Kyriacos and the Lucien Daguette brand, which Kyriacos had registered in 1980 [4].
However, it is now the Exactus and Lucien Daguette brands that are used.
1976
1981
1982
1986
But success did not come. In 1988, Exactus went bankrupt [5].
[1] FOSC 1945
[2] FOSC 1950
[3] Europa Star Asia, 1956, 38, 6, p. 93
|4] FOSC 1980
[5] FOSC 1988
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 2.5 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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