Valjoux History
Valjoux had it's basis in the small town of Les Bioux, near the shore of Lac de Joux, within the canton of Vaud in the northwest part of Switzerland. In his travels through Switzerland in 1779, Goethe wrote of this region:
"The great mountain range, which, running from Basel to Geneva , divides Switzerland from France , as you are aware, named the Jura. Its principal heights run by Lausanne and reach as far as Rolle and Nyon. In the midst of this summit ridge, Nature has cut out—I might almost say washed out—a rema
rkable valley; for the tops of all these limestone rocks the operation of the primal waters is manifest. It is called La Vallee de Joux, which means the Valley of the Rock, since Joux, in the local dialect, signifies a rock."
This region of Switzerland was among the richest in terms of watchmaking and the cottage-industry resources watchmakers and watch companies relied on. In August 1897, the local council passed a resolution to promote the establishment of watch and clock making in Les Bioux. It backed up the resolution with 60,000 Swiss francs for construction of a building, necessary machinery and other needs. In April 1898 the cornerstone was laid, and the building was completed and outfitted before the onset of winter. The business name was the Val de Joux Watch Co. This company began manufacturing pocket watches and clocks, but the name of the director or owner is unknown today.
In 1901, brothers John and Charles Reymond opened their watchmaking business, Reymond Freres, in Les Bioux, not far from the Val de Joux Watch Co. They had individually honed their watchmaking skills before starting their own business. Their reputation as fine watchmakers grew, spread by word of mouth, and their business prospered. However, the Val de Joux Watch Co. suffered from mismanagement, and ownership of the company changed hands several times during the early 1900s. In 1910, legend has it, the last owner made off with all the machine tools, benches and other equipment, leaving the building a shell.
This proved to be window of opportunity for John and Charles Reymond, as the Reymond Freres shops were too small to meet growing demand for their watches. They inspected the empty Val de Joux Watch Co. building and deemed it ideal for their expanding business. The Les Bioux councilmen met with the Reymond brothers and came to acceptable terms. The Reymond brothers and their employees welcomed the larger watch manufacturing facilities.
The company had manufactured various numbered calibres since its early years and its watch makers assembled wrist watches as well as pocket watches and even a limited number of stop watches. In 1914, they introduced chronograph wrist watches with the Calibre 22 movement (pictured, left). Two years later the Calibre 23 was introduced. However, the first World War raging in Europe had an impact on the sales of watches, despite Switzerland being isolated from the conflict, which ended in 1918. After the war, the Reymond manufacture continued to prosper and demand for its watches and ebauches continued to grow. The Reymond ebauches were distinguished by the letter R with a shield outline (pictured above, left). Sometime during the 1920s, John Reymond's sons, Marius and Arnold, joined the company and applied themselves to the watchmaking craft.
In 1929, Marius and Arnold Reymond assume control of the company, and chose to incorporate it and register the name of the company Valjoux S.A. The crash of the American stock market in 1929 had a disastrous economic impact on the U.S. economy that rippled around the world. This drastically effected demand for all Swiss watches, and thus ebauches, during the 1930s. Ebauches S.A., created decades earlier, worked to acquire ebauche manufacturing firms to ensure their survival, but Valjoux S.A. choose to remain independent.
The company continued to innovate and introduce new calibres in the 1930s and 1940s. As early as 1939, Valjoux introduced the Calibre 69 having 10.5 ligne, which was small enough to be worn by women. Production of more than 60,000 ebauches and movements was achieved in 1942. Nevertheless, by 1944, Valjoux S.A. was also acquired by Ebauches S.A. Valjoux movements were selected by Rolex, Audemars Piquet, Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin and other fine watch companies. The company became known for its fine chronograph movements, and continued this tradition with the introduction of the '7' series--the Valjoux 70, 71, 72, 72C (for calendar), 75, 76 and 77. The 72C, for example, displayed date, weekday, and Moon phase. Valjoux S.A. eventually passed from Reymond family control, and was managed by directors selected by Ebauches S.A.
These Valjoux chronograph calibres were so consistently good, they remained in production for years and served as the basis for production during the 1950s and 1960s. These movements were supplemented by the introduction of the Calbre 84, a 14 ligne movement with 30 minute register and two pushers, the Calibre 88 of 13 ligne with calendar, Moon phase, hour recorder and 30 minute register, and the Calibre 92 having 13 ligne with two functions and two pushers. All Valjoux's chronographs were manual wind, and several Swiss watch industry giants introduced automatic chronographs in the late 1960s that would motivate Valjoux to join that elite fraternity, and thus make Swiss watch movement history.
The Valjoux 7750 -- Chronograph to the World
Valjoux's manual wind chronograph movements were justifiably famous, but the introduction of Zenith's 'El Primero' automatic chronograph and Heuer's Calibre 11 automatic chronograph in 1969 created a sensation at the Basel fair that year. The small management team at Valjoux took due notice of this horological event and considered the possibility of designing an automatic chronograph. It was during this time frame that a young Edmond Capt graduated from the watchmaking school in Le Sentier with a specialty as a calibriste (one who builds prototype calibres). He then went on to study in Geneva and graduate in 1969 as a watchmaker engineer. He immediately went to work for Rolex, but stayed there only a year, no doubt feeling like a small fish in a big pond. Capt wanted to put his skills and education to work, and accepted a position with Valjoux S.A. in Les Bioux in 1970. (photo: Edmond Capt, courtesy the Swatch Group)
The technical director of Valjoux at the time discussed with Capt the desire of the company to produce an automatic chronograph. It was a matter of corporate pride that Valjoux have an automatic chronometer calibre of its own. The 17 jewel manual wind 7733 chronograph movement with subdials at 3 and 6 o'clock was a Valjoux standard of accuracy and ruggedness, and a preferred movement for Breitling, Tissot, Bulova, Fortis and other makes. Capt was directed to study the 7733 to see if it could be adapted to automatic winding. Realistically speaking, this automatic chronometer would have to be a new design, but Capt studied the 7733 to see what parts and ebauche geometry could be used.
The new calibre designation would be 7750. It was to measure 13.25 ligne, have a day and date indication with quick setting for both. It was to have three subdials; one would be a sweep second hand, the others would indicate 30 minutes elapsed time, 12 hours elapsed time with a large sweep second hand indicating seconds on the main dial. It was a tall order for the young watchmaker and ebauche designer, but Capt had the resources of the house of Valjoux behind him. Capt had been one of Le Sentier's most distinguished and perceptive students and he was asked to teach at the watchmaking school. One is his students, Gerald Gander, showed particular promise and Capt asked him to participate in the design effort for the 7750 at Valjoux. Later, Donald Rochat joined the group. Finally, another Valjoux watchmaker and a young and skilled draftswoman rounded out the team.
For years, watch movements had been designed with traditional drafting methods. Personal computers were still years away, but Valjoux did have a computer in Neuchatel in the office of the technical director. The drawings produced in Les Bioux were digitized in Neuchatel and the function of those parts checked on the computer. Capt had more to deal with than the design of the movement. He also had to work with the Valjoux manufacturing team to coordinate the tooling required to produce the parts once the designs were finalized, as well as work with outside suppliers. The 7750 had to be designed not only for the desired functions, accuracy and durability, it also had to be designed for speed and ease of manufacture. The design and development of the 7750 took two years. Strict methods of Valjoux development and testing were followed. The first complete 7750 movement to begin ticking at 28,800 beats per hour was an exciting moment for everyone at Valjoux.
Once the dedicated 7750 assembly areas were set up and the watch companies on board to purchase movements for their new watch designs, Valjoux began assembling and shipping 7750s in 1973. Interest in the 7750 began to grow and the watch companies made sure to extol the virtues of the Valjoux 7750 in its sales literature and advertisements. However, the entire Swiss industry was headed for disaster. Development of quartz movements was well-known, and certain firms in Switzerland itself had been working on electric and quartz movements since 1962. In fact, Ebauches S.A.'s Beta 21 quartz movement first appeared in Swiss watches in 1970. The Swiss watch industry, however, could not foresee the severe impact introduction of primarily Japanese quartz movement sales worldwide would have on the Swiss mechanical watch industry.
By 1975, Swiss watch companies were really starting to feel the impact on their mechanical watch sales. Valjoux, Lemania, ETA and other movement manufacturers saw their sales plummet as demand for quartz watches took off. Quartz watches were highly accurate and significantly less expensive than mechanical watches. Sales of Valjoux's movements came to a standstill, including the 7750. Small watch companies were closing their doors and the larger established watch companies were struggling to survive. Mechanical chronographs were among the most expensive Swiss watches made in the late 1970s, and demand for the 7750 dwindled. Valjoux management considered the possibility that the mechanical Swiss watch might be relegated to a curiosity and of interest only to watch collectors. Switzerland's watch industry had survived other crises, and cooler heads realized there would always be a market for the marvelous mechanical movement.
Valjoux, nevertheless, chose to stop production of the 7750 and directed the tools be scrapped since there would be no use for them. Edmond Capt was one of those cooler heads, believing scraping the tools would be a mistake and a decision Valjoux would regret later. He and the others in Les Bioux who had invested considerable effort in the 7750 quietly made the decision to simply store the tooling for the 7750 in the event of a decision to resume production at a future day. What a prophetic and wonderful decision this was! In 1978, Capt accepted a position as Technical Director at Frederic Piquet in Le Brassus to work on both quartz and mechanical movements. Valjoux continued to manufacture manual wind mechanical movements but at greatly reduced production.
In the early 1980s a curious thing happened. Demand for mechanical chronographs--both manual wind and automatic-- began to grow again. Valjoux management learned tooling for its automatic chronograph had never been scrapped and decided it should resume production of the 7750. During the 1980s and 1990s production of the 7750 continued to grow and has remained strong ever since. It became the basis of numerous variations since resumption of production and it can safely be said it is the most popular mechanical chronograph movement today with more than 200,000 units manufactured by ETA each year. However, success of the 7750 did impact demand for manual wind chronograph movements. Production of the 7733 and 7734, for example, were eventually halted.
Today, the ebauche stamp on the 7750 is that of ETA, not Valjoux. The company itself was eventually completely absorbed into the ETA S.A. corporate structure. On ETA's website, Valjoux does appear in the location of its manufactures for Les Bioux. Admirers of Valjoux movements will always equate the company's calibres with the name Valjoux.
Les Bioux Today
The town of Les Bioux and surrounding area still has a profound impact both in terms of history and actual movement manufacture and watch making. ETA chose to keep one of its chief production facilities in Les Bioux. It is quite possible that the location of the present ETA manufacturing facilities may, in fact, be in the same building where Valjoux S.A. once manufactured its movements and ebauches.
This is indeed hallowed ground for the Valjoux faithful. It can confidently be determined than Valjoux movements and ebauches and their descendents have been manufactured at this location for nearly 100 years. This is most definitely worth a train trip to see the home of Valjoux. These two photos were taken in August 2006 by Marc_WL (using his id on the WatchesYouSeek Forum from where the photos were found). Thank you Marc.
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