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Joël Pynson
January 2026
1. The Dorly Watch Manufactory
Jules Girard founded his watchmaking company in Tramelan in 1924 under the name Jules Girard, Manufacture d’horlogerie Dorly [1].
The company manufactured movements and pocket watches continuously for nearly 30 years.
1927
1929
1938
1949
1954
In fact, it wasn't until around 1954 that the first wristwatches—very classic in style—based on Ébauches SA movements appeared.
2. Dorly SA
In 1960, the company became Dorly SA [2], and in 1961 it was acquired by Tenor of Tramelan, led by Roland Choffat [3].
1961
1963
However, both Dorly and Tenor remain independent companies.
In 1964, Dorly launched a watch with an interchangeable bezel that won an honorary award at the Swiss National Exhibition that same year. The patent, CH 493 022, was held by Roland Choffat.
The watch itself is automatic and water-resistant to 200 m for the stainless steel versions. Four bezels are available for this model, called the Oenor 004: tachymeter, GMT, diving, and unmarked.
There are two versions of this watch: one with baton hands on a white dial, launched in 1964, and the other with arrow hands on a black dial, launched in 1966. The first version was also available as a pocket watch.
1964
1965
1965
1966
In 1967, Dorly launched a new diving watch, the Avantario, which was automatic and water-resistant to 200 m for the stainless steel models.
1967
After the merger with Tenor in 1968 to form Tenor & Dorly [4], the Dorly brand was gradually phased out.
[1] FOSC 1924
[2] FOSC 1960
[3] FOSC 1961
[4] FOSC 1968
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 The database consists of historical documents, mainly Swiss trade journals, dating from the late 19th century to the late 20th century.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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