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Joël Pynson
January 2026
1. Jules Küffer and Arthur Schwar
The history of Mical watches dates back to 1899 when Jules Küffer established a watchmaking factory in Biel [1]. The watches were of such high quality that the factory was awarded a gold medal in Thun in the year it was founded.
1901
Upon his death in 1913, his son Jules Edmund took over [2].
Little is known about the watches produced by Jules Edmund. In 1947, the factory was taken over by Arthur Schwar-Saisselin and the company was renamed Arthur Schwar [3].
Arthur Schwar was a well-known figure in the region's watchmaking community, as he was already involved in the Sauter brothers' factory (Pierpont watches) in Biel, the Home watch company in La Chaux-de-Fonds, and Pallas watches in Biel, as well as being involved in non-watchmaking companies!
In 1948, Arthur Schwar registered the Mical brand, which he gradually developed.
2. Montres Mical
As the Mical brand grew in importance, in 1954 the Arthur Schwar company became Montres Mical SA [4].
The watches were very classic in style, with movements supplied by Ébauches SA.
1955
1958
In 1958, Arthur Schwar founded Mical-Eminent to market Mical watches, but the company went bankrupt in 1965 [5].
In 1958, Mical launched a single-push-piece aviator-style chronograph with a steel case and Valjoux 22 caliber.
However, the company ran into difficulties and went bankrupt in 1970 [6].
3. Mical SA
The story of Mical does not end there. In 1974, André Rettenmund founded Mical SA in Biel to market products for the watchmaking industry [7].
In 1994, Mical SA was taken over by the Candino holding company owned by the Flury family [8]. Mical then became a subsidiary of Candino, dedicated to the manufacture of private label watches.
1999
1999
Finally, in 2002, Mical was acquired by the Festina Group [9].
[1] FOSC 1899
[2] FOSC 1913
[3] FOSC 1947
[4] FOSC 1954
[5] FOSC 1958 and 1965
[6] FOSC 1970
[7] FOSC 1974
[8] FOSC 1994
[9] FOSC 2002
The FOSC (Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce) is available at 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 The database consists of historical documents, mainly Swiss trade journals, dating from the late 19th century to the late 20th century.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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