IWC History

By visiting our IWC Catalogue you can see the models that we have currently in stock.

1868: The American engineer and watchmaker, Florentine Ariosto Jones was director of F.Howard & Cie, In Boston, America’s leading watch making company. He traveled across the Atlantic to Switzerland, where his plan was to found the International Watch Company with the aim to manufacture movements and watch parts for the American market. However he had failed to take into account that the workers in the Geneva region and the remote valleys of the Jura Mountains feared for their jobs and were against Jones' intrusion

It was probably around this point that Jones met watch manufacturer and industrialist Johann Heinrich Moser who manufactured pocket watches for the Russian tsars. Moser was an industrial pioneer and had recently finished building a hydrostation in Schaffhausen powered by water from the Rhine. Moser showed a great interest in Jones' plans and so the foundations were set for the first and only watch manufacturers in north-eastern Switzerland: the IWC INTERNATIONAL WATCH CO. in Schaffhausen

1880, February 17th: Johann Rauschenbach-Vogel, Chief Executive Officer and a machine manufacturer from Schaffhausen, took over the INTERNATIONALE UHRENFABRIK. This change marked the beginning of the story of INTERNATIONAL WATCH CO., which would last almost one hundred years and four generations, a family-owned company that would be known under various names

1881: Just one year after the sale, Johann Rauschenbach-Vogel died. However his son Johannes Rauschenbach-Schenk took over control and ran it successfully

1882: Elgin movement developed

1885: The first IWC digital watch (Pallweber)

1887: Manufacture of the Magique. It has 24-hour display that can be used as a hunter or open face watch

1883: Another significant person in the company history was Urs Haenggi from Nunningen in the canton of Solothurn joined IWC and stayed with the company for 52 years. He got factory operations up and running smoothly and acquired new customers. He was also responsible for warding off the danger of the factory passing into other hands "in the interest of the noble Rauschenbach family" Technician Johann Vogel from Wangen on the Aare in Solothurn likewise played an important role as technical director. (He designed and developed IWC calibres until 1919)

1885: IWC produced its first digital watch based on a patent owned by an Austrian by the name of Pallweber. The design by Pallweber was very simple with a tiny window for the hours and minutes. Nowadays these watches are extremely rare and sought after collectors items

1905: Johannes Rauschenbach-Schenk died 2nd March

1915: IWC designs and launches its first wristwatch featuring the 75 calibre movement

1936: Special Pilots Watch launched, featuring a rotating bezel with an arrow index that is used to register the take off times

1939: Birth of the Portugieser - Two Portuguese importers order a series of large wristwatches with high precision pocket watch movements

1940: IWC develops the Big Pilots Watch 52 S.C. with its central second hands

1940’s: After the Second World War, the markets of Eastern Europe were lost due to the descent of the Iron Curtain. Germany was also deemed to be a lost market as it was in ruins and needed time to revive

1944: IWCs first W.W.W. This stands for "Watch, Wrist, Waterproof" for military use by the British Army

1946: Pellaton's first design, the 89 calibre movement, has central seconds hand and boasts outstanding accuracy

1948: Appearance of the Mark 11 pilots watch from IWC with the 89 calibre movement. The soft iron inner case provides high protection against magnetic fields

1940’s : A global economic revival, which saw the Swiss watch industry flourish and other markets such as America, the Far East and Australia were looked at and established

1940: Introduction of the Big Pilots Watch with a 52 S.C. calibre pocket watch movement. (In 2002 the modern version was launched and has proved extremely popular)

1950: The 85 calibre, designed by Albert Pellaton, features IWCs first automatic winding movement

1954: Introduction of the Ingenieur with an automatic movement

1959: Design of the 44 calibre, IWCs first automatic movement for women

1967: Aquatimer introduced, a professional divers watch water resistant to 200m

1969: IWC present its first quartz wristwatch, the Da Vinci quartz watch was fitted with a Beta 21 calibre movement. However competition from Japan saw the Swiss watch industry fall into a crisis. IWC avoided heavy investment in this technology and went back to produce what it was best at - mechanical movements

1970: The first wristwatch to feature the Beta 21 quartz movement - the Da Vinci

1976: Ingenieur SL with a patented snail precision adjustment on the balance arms makes its debut

1977: The 9721 calibre is unveiled, the first pocket watch from IWC with a calendar and moon phase display