Eterna - History

History

On November 7, 1856, the doctor Joseph Girard and the 28-year old school teacher Urs Schild found the ébauche factory "Dr. Girard & Schild“. Eight years later the enterprise sets out the mutual rights and obligations of employees and employers in writing. Urs Schild becomes a National Councilor in 1882. Six years later, he dies at the age of 58. After the death of Urs Schild his son Max took over the company and made soon after a business trip to the United States. He returned to introduce, in the midst of craftsman, machinery. Max Schild was ahead of his times and his ideas were unpopular. Desalinated he left the company and handed to power over to his brother Theodore, with whom Eterna entered a prosperous 20th century.

By the 1900s, wristwatches were just starting to become fashionable. Schild Fréres, as the company was then known, started to produce lady’s wristwatches from adapted small pocket watches. In 1905, the company changed their name to Eterna. The company continued to be at the leading edge of watch developments, and in 1908 it patented the first alarm wristwatch. The watch went into production in 1914 and was launched at the Swiss National Exhibition at Berne in that year.

By 1932, Eterna had set up a subsidiary company, ETA, to make movements for itself and other Swiss watch companies. This same year, Theodore retired and handed over the control of the company to his nephew Rudolf Schild. Although retired, Theodore remained on the board of directors until his death in 1950.

Eterna produced many innovations in their history, the smallest production wristwatch with a Baguette movement in 1930, an eight-day alarm watch in the 1930s and their first automatic watch in 1938.

In 1948, Eterna took a major step forward in self-winding watch technology when it developed the Eterna-matic automatic movement. The use of five strategically placed ball bearings made the movement very efficient and significantly reduced friction and resistance on the oscillating weight that wound the mainspring. This reduced the wear and tear on internal parts, increasing the watch’s accuracy and increasing its useful life. Within months, the new watch became an instant hit and is probably the most famous Eterna watch and might be one of Eterna's greatest designs. 1948 became so popular that Eterna adopted the image of five ball bearings as its corporate logo.

After 1982, Eterna was sold several times. By 1995, it ended up being owned by F.A.P. Beteiligungs GmbH. In 1999, Eterna produced a range of watches that were marketed under the Porsche Design label. Porsche Design sold Eterna to International Volant Ltd, a subsidiary of China Haidian on 30.6.2012.

In the 2000s Eterna puts itself back into the circle of genuine manufactures and creates in 2004 the Calibre 6036. For the 150. anniversary in 2006 the ultra-thin manufacture automatic 3030 follows. 2009, half-century after the Eterna-Matic, the "Spherodrive" once again highlights the significance of tiny ball-bearings in mechanical watchmaking. Today the company is still at the forefront of modern wristwatch design.