Cyma Watches

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Founded 1891 in Tavannes by Tavannes Watch, F. Henri Sandoz. Frederic Henri Sandoz was in heart and soul a businessman. To get on in his profession he turned his back on his home town of Le Locle and the Henri Sandoz & Co. watch company that he had founded there. In the nearby town of Tavannes he started a new company for the production of simple and complicated watches, including chronographs, an aptitude for which was proved by a chronograph patent registered in 1890. Further patents ensued, among them for a stem-winding mechanism and a chiming movement. The new workshops covered more than 1000 square meters. Forty employees, with the help of 55 modern machine-tools completed more than 40 timepieces a day. Some of these went onto the market under the Cyma name. Towards 1892 the company entered into a cooperative agreement with Schwob Freres of La Chaux-de-Fonds. The company continued to expand after the turn of the century.

By around 1905, daily production amounted to some 1000 watches. New markets in the Far East and elsewhere gave a noticeable boost to growth. In 1938, around 2000 employees and 2200 machine-tools reached an output of about 4000 watches and movements a day The company's 20th-century product range naturally included wristwatches of the most diverse character - for example the shock-proof models with a protective cover issued to soldiers in 1915. These were followed by "waterproof" versions. Catalogs from the 1930s also show wrist-chronographs equipped with Valjoux movements. At that time, Tavannes-Cyma claimed to be Switzerland's largest supplier of precision watches.

In 1943 the company launched its first automatic movement, the caliber 420, with a swinging arm winding in one direction. This movement was fitted into the square-cased "Watersport" model, for example. Another collector's item is the "Autorotor" self-winding caliber 485, launched in around 1957. Thereafter Cyma used ETA calibers.

In 1966 Tavannes-Cyma ceased production and the rights to the brand name passed to Chronos Holding.

History provided by Mr. Laurie Kemp.