While reading a book about various watchmaking companies it appeared to me that, yes it was ages ago, that Audemars Piguet made this and also ages ago that Patek Philippe made that … but that made me wonder, what does «ages ago» even mean? Would placing these key events on a timeline illustrate this with more clarity? And how are these events related to each other on a timeline? And how might they relate to other key non-watchmaking events of the time, such as technical and societal developments?

I then came across various timelines – but in most cases they only show the “birth year”, which I found a bit too little. But on the other hand I didn’t want to read 100s of pages of storytelling per brand.

So I compiled this small (deliberately; the hardest job was in most instances to decide what fits into these little boxes) table for me, which you may or not find interesting for yourself.
For reasons of space, it is of course a highly simplified representation, particularly with regard to company transitions. 

While the the absolute basis of a watch, the escapement, appeared in Europe in the 14th century (predecessors in the 13th), it took until around 1650 when Christiaan Huygens adapted Gallieo’s idea of a pendulum for clocks (and the spiral subsequently). This was the start of exact timekeeping and hence the start of this table.

We would be delighted if this were a kind of small regular resource for you as you look back through the world of watches. 

Disclaimer 1:
This is by no means all-inclusive and is not intended to be. It’s rather meant as a source of a coarse chronological classification – and it is highly subjective.

Disclaimer 2:
The table summarises data in an overview, but does not attempt to challenge it. So whether Blancpain was really founded in 1735 (whatever one understands by «founding; usually the brands take the first date on which the founder somehow appears with a watch in his hands in the history books) … this is for others to judge (=> Perezcope files)

PS:
During the compilation of this table, I learned something, which is not directly linked to the timeline: many of the brands 100s of years ago realised in one or another way the benefit of a partnership of a technical person and a commercial one as a basis for success. 

PPS:
I also realised – Roman, you have to be very strong now – that while the majority of manufacturers in the 20th century made lots of use of 3rd party movements (first and foremost the holy trinity, AP, VC and, maybe to a lesser extent, PP who used JLC movements extensively, mainly in the 50s and 60s) it was Rolex, the «newcomer», who soon relied kind of exclusively on one manufacture, Aegler. Aegler later got a part of Rolex group (the story is a actually bit more complex).
So (with the exception of the chronograph movement in the Daytona) during the hot time of mechanical watches before the quartz crisis, Rolex had much more influence on its movement development compared to the competitors.  And Rolex decided to focus on reliability and accuracy as opposed to size – which proved to be the right strategy as we know now.   

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