Eterna

In 1856, Josef Girard and Urs Schild started making watches in Grechen, a town suffering from unemployment and hunger. In 1914, the company that became Eterna launched the world’s first wristwatch with an alarm. Eterna and ETA, the machine manufacturer it owned, were active innovators, producing the smallest wristwatch with an oblong mechanism, launched in 1930, the automatic wristwatch with a rotating balance wheel, launched in 1938, and the Eterna-matic self-winding movement, launched in 1948. Eterna’s most popular models are the KonTiki, Vaughan and Soleure, based on Thor Heyerdahl’s reed lava saga.