IWC Introduction And History (1881-1940)
June 24th, 2011
In 1881 Johannes Rauschenbach Schenk took over IWC after the death of his parents.
In 1882 IWC triturated Elgin watch mechanism and made it go into operation.
In 1884 Czar Ferdinand who was a Bulgarian became the first famous IWC watch connoisseur and he bought an IWC watch as a present to his faithful comrade.
In 1885 the first pocket watches which adopted Pallweber system and showed hours and minutes in figure were brought out from Schaffhauser and it was the first example in the world.
In 1887 the pocket watch Magique was born. That watch adopted mobile watchcase and could support 24 hours showing function which could be used as hunter and open face pocket watch.
In 1891 IWC started to provide wrist watch for service for Italian State Railways.
In 1893 it started to produce the 52th watch mechanism.
In 1898 IWC was taken over by Stauffer, Son & Co. located in London who brought Schaffhauser wrist watches in Great Britain by its name.
In 1899 the first Schaffhauser wrist watch left the factory.
In 1903 Johannes Rauschenbach’s beloved daughter Emma Marie Rauschenbach married Carl Gusta Jung who was a psychologist and psychiatrist. Her sister Bertha Margaretha married Ernst Jakob Homberger who was a Schaffhauser industrialist in the same year.
In 1905 the son-in-law of Johannes Rauschenbach Ernst Jakob Homberger took over IWC as his heir and at the same time he charged the industrial company Georg Fischer (GF).
In 1906 IWC won Grand Prix in Milan World Exposition.
In 1915 IWC first designed and released its wrist watch using totally new 75th watch mechanism.
In 1920 IWC paid 1000 franc salary per month and 3000 franc of bonus every year for its board manager.
In 1929 Ernst Jakob Homberger purchased his brother-in-law C.G.Jung’s stock and he became sole proprietor ownership of IWC.
In 1930 IWC began to produce 67/68th watch mechanism for pocket watch.
In 1935 in cooperation with Pbtek Phlippe IWC exported its products to the US.
In 1936 the first pilot special watch came out. It adopted black dial with luminous and digital and pointer, with arrow rotary inner ring and watch mechanism with antimagnetic function.
In 1938 IWC provided a series of pocket watches for spotters with big second hand to satisfy the needs of Royal Navy. Confronting the economic crisis, salaries of managerial levels were reduced sharply.
In 1939 the import merchant Rodriguez from Lisbon and Teixeira from Portugal ordered a great amount of wrist watch equipped with precise pocket watch mechanism. It was since then the Portugal wrist watch series came out.
In 1940 IWC researched Big Pilot’s Wrist Watch with second hand to satisfy the customers’ needs.
74.6% of its watches were sold in Europe, 21.3% in Swiss and 4.1% in other market and Asia.