Junghans Watch Co.

Junghans had the largest wristwatch and clock factory in 1903 when it had over 3000 employees. This company is located in Schramberg, Baden-Württemberg. It was in 1861 that Erhard Junghans had created the company “Junghans und Tobler” along with his brother-in-law Jakob Zeller-Tobler. This company started producing watches in 1927. In the 1950s, their designer Max Bill started creating clocks as well as watches for Junghans. This continued for many years. One of his works included a wall clock that was designed in 1956/57 and is a part of a collection in The Museum of Modern Art in New York. It was in 1962 that Bill started creating mechanical wristwatches for Junghans. All these were impressive timepieces. They had aesthetic designs and were highly precise too.

It was in 1980s that the first radio-controlled timepiece was introduced by them in the world market. After this the first radio-controlled wristwatch followed in 1990. This was called the MEGA 1. Junghans then came out with a solar powered watch in 1995 that had ceramic housing. Along with the Japanese clock maker Seiko, this company also developed a wristwatch that was automatically able to set the local time as per their respective time zones.

This company was taken over by the Diehl Group in 1956. Then the company introduced its first electro-mechanical wristwatch in 1962. After 5 years, came the first big quartz clock that was called Astro-Chron. In 1970 came the first German quartz wristwatch called Astro-Quarz. This was a pioneering work in modern time measurement. Hence it yielded international recognition. It was the official timekeeper of the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972. This is when colored photo-finish was used for the first time. Besides, the precision of the measurements had reached the level of 1/100 seconds. They completely stopped the manufacture of mechanical watch movements in 1976. All the development efforts was now fully focused on perfecting the quartz watch.

The first radio-controlled table clock that was mass produced was presented in 1985. It could independently synchronize even with the atomic clock of the Physikalisch-Technische. Bundesanstalt in Braunschweig. It was in 1986 that the first radio-controlled solar watch RCS1 d of the world could be presented. This was followed with the model MEGA 1 that was presented in the year 1990. Then the brand became known for quartz watches that worked with solar power in conjunction with radio control.