Reply With QuoteI feel SWEETS will be your man for this one.
Could anyone educate me about Lemania please? I have read up some historical info re their heritage in movements and some turbulence in their ownership and demise of sorts but what's good and bad about them? Any owners views too? Many thx.
I feel SWEETS will be your man for this one.
As above - Sweets is mr LemaniaOriginally Posted by notnowkato
Some fine watches and movements... just as varied and interesting in places Heuer (who use their movements)
Becoming increasingly collectible... I'd love a nice Lemania with the iconic 5100 movement
Hello, resident Lemania freak here.
I wrote this as the intro to the Lemania forum over on ATG (which I moderate). A very short potted history of one of the more important complication designers and makers of the 20th Century.
Hope it answers a few queries.
The Lemania name derives from lake Geneva, known by the French speakers of Switzerland as Lac Leman.
On the back of some of their watches, Lemania themselves claim a history from 1884, but no watch was produced under that name until at least 40 years after this date.
The company was started by Alfed Lugrin in 1884, specifically as a movement maker and provider of complications for simpler pocket watches. Chronographs, repeaters and so forth. It stayed as such until at least the late 1920s, when it changed to Lemania Lugrin SA under the management of Marius Meylan, Alfred Lugrin’s son-in-law. It started producing watches under its own name. A significant development happened in 1932 when Lemania joined SSIH (Societé Suisse pour L’Industrie Horologère), an agglomeration of Omega and Tissot which had been founded 2 years earlier. SSIH was a rationalisation undertaken in order to combine the forces of these large manufacturers in the face of the great depression, which was threatening the industry as a whole, and sole companies in particular. The other such group was AUSAG.
The co-operative inside SSIH led to what could be called Lemania’s most fruitful alliance, the provision of movements to Omega, most notably for their mechanical chronographs. Lemania also flourished in its own right, and designed and produced some notable movements and watches in this alliance, notably chronographs for British and Commonwealth armed forces – it could be considered its “golden age”. It certianly represents the majority of its history, lasting until the '80s.
Lemania became Nouvelle Lemania when it demerged from the ailing SSIH (which had become SMH when SSIH joined with AUSAG) in 1981. It was a management buyout from the group with the funds provided intended to prop up SMH, which had been ravaged over the course of the 70s by economic conditions, high costs, uneconomic technical innovation and severe competition from Japan.
The buyout was part-funded by Piaget, who then went on to buy Heuer in 1982. Here started Lemania’s second major alliance with a large manufacturer, which only lasted until a short while after Heuer was sold to the TAG group in 1985.
Lemania carried on, but the industry was not what it once was, and it was bought out by new investors in 1991. These new owners (Bahrain Investcorp) already owned Breguet, and Lemania’s last alliance with a large retail brand was effectively cemented, but Lemania still flourished and produced new movements for others, as well as an increasing amount for Breguet, who had previously not really used many Lemania movements.
The death knell for Lemania was the Investcorp sale to the Swatch group in 1999. The management seemed hell-bent on the Lemania name disappearing, and decreed that one of its more successful products, the 5100 movement, was not to be sold outside the Swatch Group – strange, since just about no manufacturer inside the group used the movement.
Swatch also had plans for Breguet, and the Lemania organisation was subsumed into the Breguet brand, becoming their in-house movement manufacturer, and avoiding the need for Breguet to out-source.
The fatal blows were delivered, and Lemania has been a dying concept ever since. The name no longer appears on what few Lemania movements remain in stock, and a proud name in watchmaking is effectively no more.
But, over the course of their history, they have certainly created their own legacy, and that’s what we’re here to discuss.....
So the main point is that they were primarily movement makers, who also produced whole timepieces. They had a huge range, including stopwatches of all designations, clocks, alarms, chronographs and plain time-only watches.
Their products were issued to forces from most countries that issued such things. The UK (WWW and HS9 chronos to start), Italy, Canada, Sweden, Czechoslovakia are a few of the more famous wristwatch ones.
They also produced movements used in all sorts of other brand watches selected for arduous use.
All the latter automatic Bund chronographs were driven by the 5100 (Artcos, Tengler, Tutima and Porche Design).
Every Omega Speedmaster Professional uses a slightly tweaked 1873 (and every one from the very start had a Lemania movement in of some type).
95% of the 8000 or so mechanical stopwatches and watches issued by our own BBC from the 1950s to the 1980s were Lemania.
Same for our GPO, and many of our regional railways.
Also, many of the RAF's cockpit clocks were Lemania powered too.
Do you have any more detailed queries?
Dave
It's good to see that Lemania lives on, effectively as the Breguet Manufacture these days. Which brings me to a question. I have a Type XX which has some kind of Lemania automatic chronograph movement, a Sinn 903.ST.GL with a handwound cal 1873 and also some Speedy Pro's with the handwound cal 1861. Are these movements related at all or related to the 5100? What are the similarities and differences in the Lemania chrono movements?
Last edited by fordy964; 24th May 2017 at 03:28.
I have to correct you a little, Lemania was effectively killed by Swatch in order to provide the otherwise empty name of Breguet with a factory of some credibility.
To say it lives on within the organisation is like saying the seal lives on in the form of the Great White that ate it.
The Type XX uses one of the evolutions of the 1340 movement. It is a long way removed, but the essence is till there. The XXI movement is a lot closer, but similarly an evolution of the 1340 (and the later 1350 designation)
The 1873 (Lemania's numerical designation) is the Omega Cal 1861, except one or two twiddles and some fancy coatings. It is mostly unrelated to the 1340 family (which was the Omega 1040 and 1041).
And the 5100 (which Omega called the 1045) is separate again.
All mostly separate chronograph movement evolutions, albeit sharing a common hand on the design rudder.
Dave
^^^^ Brilliant!
Ha ha. Not disputing that at all but we all know secretly that Breguet is a thinly veiled front for Lemania and all the IP that goes with it. Same happened to Minerva with it's overnight renaming as Mont Blanc. Storied Manufacture brings instant legitimacy, movements and know how to marketers wet dream brands. For me though I love my Breguet all the more because it's got a Lemania inside.
thanks of the heads-up here, its very helpful. Means any place that can service my Speedy Pro should be able to handle the Sinn too :-)
Many thx Sweets. Very helpful and infoirmative. Its a shame how Corporate Globalisation destroys Heritage!!!!!!!!Hello, resident Lemania freak here.
I wrote this as the intro to the Lemania forum over on ATG (which I moderate). A very short potted history of one of the more important complication designers and makers of the 20th Century.
Hope it answers a few queries.
The Lemania name derives from lake Geneva, known by the French speakers of Switzerland as Lac Leman.
On the back of some of their watches, Lemania themselves claim a history from 1884, but no watch was produced under that name until at least 40 years after this date.
The company was started by Alfed Lugrin in 1884, specifically as a movement maker and provider of complications for simpler pocket watches. Chronographs, repeaters and so forth. It stayed as such until at least the late 1920s, when it changed to Lemania Lugrin SA under the management of Marius Meylan, Alfred Lugrin’s son-in-law. It started producing watches under its own name. A significant development happened in 1932 when Lemania joined SSIH (Societé Suisse pour L’Industrie Horologère), an agglomeration of Omega and Tissot which had been founded 2 years earlier. SSIH was a rationalisation undertaken in order to combine the forces of these large manufacturers in the face of the great depression, which was threatening the industry as a whole, and sole companies in particular. The other such group was AUSAG.
The co-operative inside SSIH led to what could be called Lemania’s most fruitful alliance, the provision of movements to Omega, most notably for their mechanical chronographs. Lemania also flourished in its own right, and designed and produced some notable movements and watches in this alliance, notably chronographs for British and Commonwealth armed forces – it could be considered its “golden age”. It certianly represents the majority of its history, lasting until the '80s.
Lemania became Nouvelle Lemania when it demerged from the ailing SSIH (which had become SMH when SSIH joined with AUSAG) in 1981. It was a management buyout from the group with the funds provided intended to prop up SMH, which had been ravaged over the course of the 70s by economic conditions, high costs, uneconomic technical innovation and severe competition from Japan.
The buyout was part-funded by Piaget, who then went on to buy Heuer in 1982. Here started Lemania’s second major alliance with a large manufacturer, which only lasted until a short while after Heuer was sold to the TAG group in 1985.
Lemania carried on, but the industry was not what it once was, and it was bought out by new investors in 1991. These new owners (Bahrain Investcorp) already owned Breguet, and Lemania’s last alliance with a large retail brand was effectively cemented, but Lemania still flourished and produced new movements for others, as well as an increasing amount for Breguet, who had previously not really used many Lemania movements.
The death knell for Lemania was the Investcorp sale to the Swatch group in 1999. The management seemed hell-bent on the Lemania name disappearing, and decreed that one of its more successful products, the 5100 movement, was not to be sold outside the Swatch Group – strange, since just about no manufacturer inside the group used the movement.
Swatch also had plans for Breguet, and the Lemania organisation was subsumed into the Breguet brand, becoming their in-house movement manufacturer, and avoiding the need for Breguet to out-source.
The fatal blows were delivered, and Lemania has been a dying concept ever since. The name no longer appears on what few Lemania movements remain in stock, and a proud name in watchmaking is effectively no more.
But, over the course of their history, they have certainly created their own legacy, and that’s what we’re here to discuss.....
So the main point is that they were primarily movement makers, who also produced whole timepieces. They had a huge range, including stopwatches of all designations, clocks, alarms, chronographs and plain time-only watches.
Their products were issued to forces from most countries that issued such things. The UK (WWW and HS9 chronos to start), Italy, Canada, Sweden, Czechoslovakia are a few of the more famous wristwatch ones.
They also produced movements used in all sorts of other brand watches selected for arduous use.
All the latter automatic Bund chronographs were driven by the 5100 (Artcos, Tengler, Tutima and Porche Design).
Every Omega Speedmaster Professional uses a slightly tweaked 1873 (and every one from the very start had a Lemania movement in of some type).
95% of the 8000 or so mechanical stopwatches and watches issued by our own BBC from the 1950s to the 1980s were Lemania.
Same for our GPO, and many of our regional railways.
Also, many of the RAF's cockpit clocks were Lemania powered too.
Do you have any more detailed queries?
Dave
Great read Sweets - thanks
Posting Permissions
