In 1832, Auguste Agassiz found a job with Comptoir Horloger Raiguel Jeune. It began in St Imier, Switzerland. In 1833 he took over the business, when he and two of his associates opened up a company. It was then called, Comptoir Raiguel Jeue & Cie. It began as what we now call, a home company. Employees worked on watches at home, to be sold later in the workshop.
Somewhere between 1854 to 1866 Agassiz handed down the operation of his business, to his nephew Ernest Francillon. The quality of the watches made at home had become very low, and Agassiz took notice of this. He decided it was time to open a factory.
Agassiz opened his first watch factory, in Les Longines. This is how the Longines name was born. He moved all of his watch makers under this one roof, and made all of their supplies available to them. This greatly enhanced the quality of the watches.
Throughout the years, the company began to expand its production line. First came the chronographs, in 1879. Later came the making of cockpit instruments, and aviator watches. This line of products played an important role, in the making of their trademark.
The companies trademark was invented a year later. It was registered on July 19, 1880. It featured a winged hourglass, and is used to this day.
The year 1912 brought forth another revelation, for the Longines Company. In that year, they produced the first automatic time keeping device. It started when Longines became closely associated with gymnastics. It was the Longines Watch Company that became the official time keeper for the Swiss Federal Gymnastics Meet. This was the introduction of the first broken wire automatic timing system. Today most major sporting events, use Longines as an official time keeper.
Longines became associated with the International Aeronautics Federation in 1919. Since this time Longines has supplied the watches, to both set and certify a number flight records. These include, Charles Lindbergh's crossing of the North Atlantic. Amelia Earhart was also a famous wearer of their brand.
The Company also linked a partnership with Ferrari of Italy. It produced a new line of watches in 1982. The sole purpose of this new line, was to advertise their new partnership.
Two years later in 1984, the Company introduced a new high precision quartz caliber watch. It had a thermic sensor to keep its timing stable. It could be manually set, and is 10 times more precise than an average quartz watch.
A breakthrough of production was experienced in the 1970s. They made advances in the performance of their watches. The appearance also began to change. In 1973, Longines was the first watch distributor to offer an LCD display screen.
In 1980, they produced a new series of watches. This series featured a set of ultra thin watches. Longines had already set a world record, with a watch that was made in 1960. This watch was only 0.98 mm thick.
In 2001, Longines produced their 30 millionth watch. In 2010, the brand celebrates is 130th year of their trademark logo, and their 178th year in business. Longines remains a widely recognized name, and is currently owned by the Swatch Group.
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