44Watch housesProfile details
Corporate history and comparative claims remain attributed. The 1832 origin differs from the 1867 factory date. The Hour Angle design follows the 1927 flight; the reported oldest-watch discovery is limited to the 2018 announcement. No image-reuse permission established.
- Business origins
- 1832 — Auguste Agassiz joined a watch-trading business in Saint-Imier
- Longines factory opened
- 1867 — Factory opening; separate from 1832 origins
- 13.33Z introduced
- 1913 — One of the earliest dedicated wristwatch chronograph movements, according to Longines
- Hour Angle design registration
- 1931-10-01 — Design registration after the 1927 flight
Workshop economy and factory
Longines is best understood through the relationship between a regional workshop economy and an increasingly organized factory. Its origins lie in Saint-Imier in 1832, when Auguste Agassiz joined a watch-trading business. Watches were assembled through the établissage system: specialist workers supplied parts or work from separate premises. Agassiz’s nephew Ernest Francillon subsequently brought stages of production together. He bought land beside the Suze in 1866 and opened the factory in 1867; its location, Les Longines, supplied the name. This is why the house’s origin date and the Longines factory’s date differ.
Evidence: Longines corporate history
Mechanization and specialist craft
That factory story offers a useful corrective to the idea that traditional watchmaking necessarily means one person making everything alone. Engineer Jacques David helped develop its machinery, and the company reports a workforce exceeding 1,100 by 1911. Mechanization and specialist craft were partners in this history. The same corporate source identifies Longines as a Swatch Group brand today. That ownership describes the company’s organization; it does not mean every historical or contemporary Longines movement has the same origin.
Evidence: Longines corporate history
Operating a monopusher
A significant technical reference is the 13.33Z, introduced in 1913. Longines describes it as one of the earliest chronograph movements designed specifically for wristwatches, a careful formulation worth retaining rather than promoting it to an unqualified world first. Its monopusher layout uses a single button to advance through start, stop and reset. The lesson is ergonomic: a complication’s identity includes how a person operates it, as well as the mechanism hidden beneath its dial.
Evidence: Longines on monopusher chronographs
Weems, Lindbergh and a dated design
The house’s aviation narrative is especially revealing when its sequence is preserved. Philip Van Horn Weems developed a second-setting system before the Lindbergh Hour Angle watch. Longines’ account describes a rotating central dial, a way to reconcile a watch display with a radio time signal. The later Hour Angle design was developed after Lindbergh’s 1927 Atlantic flight, not worn under that name during it. WIPO’s design-history publication records the Hour Angle registration on 1 October 1931 and credits the collaboration among Longines, Lindbergh and Weems.
Evidence: Longines on Weems, WIPO design history
A modern Hour Angle reference
For a concrete modern reference, the Lindbergh Hour Angle L2.678.4.11.0 is listed with a 47.5 mm steel case, automatic movement and bidirectional bezel. Its unusually large dimensions and elaborate scales are useful subjects for a visual study of an instrument translated into a heritage wristwatch. They should not be mistaken for proof that a modern wearer has a self-contained navigation system.
Evidence: Official model page
An archival discovery
One documented archival discovery brings the industrial history back to an individual object: in 2018 Longines reported that a collector had located serial number 183, made in 1867. The announcement called it the oldest Longines watch found to that date, a dated finding rather than an eternal record.
Evidence: Longines discovery announcement
An archive number is a useful starting point
The reported serial-number discovery supplies a compact exercise in historical description. Record the object’s number, the stated manufacturing year and the date of the announcement separately. The phrase oldest found to date belongs beside that last date. Next compare the operating idea of the monopusher with the navigational idea of a rotating scale: one organises a sequence of actions, the other assists a calculation. Both require context beyond a handsome dial. This is a reading study of documented instruments, rather than instructions for using a heritage watch as a present navigation system.
Evidence: Longines on monopusher chronographs, Longines discovery announcement
Sources & reading
- Longines corporate historyLongines · 2026-10-05
Supports the adjacent supplied prose only. Consult the article’s explicit scope and qualifications; no image-reuse permission established.
- Longines on monopusher chronographsLongines · 2026-10-05
Supports the adjacent supplied prose only. Consult the article’s explicit scope and qualifications; no image-reuse permission established.
- Longines on WeemsLongines · 2026-10-05
Supports the adjacent supplied prose only. Consult the article’s explicit scope and qualifications; no image-reuse permission established.
- WIPO design historyWorld Intellectual Property Organization · 2026-10-05
Supports the adjacent supplied prose only. Consult the article’s explicit scope and qualifications; no image-reuse permission established. Research handoff consulted this primary publication; independent reader re-fetch exceeded its content-size limit. The date is not inferred from the 1927 flight.
- Official model pageLongines · 2026-10-05
Supports the adjacent supplied prose only. Consult the article’s explicit scope and qualifications; no image-reuse permission established.
- Longines discovery announcementLongines · 2026-10-05
Supports the adjacent supplied prose only. Consult the article’s explicit scope and qualifications; no image-reuse permission established.