Glashütte watch company
| Glashütter Uhrenbetrieb GmbH
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| legal form | Company with limited liability |
| founding | 1845/1890/1951/1990 |
| Seat | Glashütte (Saxony) , Germany |
| management | Roland by Keith |
| Branch | Watch manufacture |
| Website | www.glashuette-original.com |
The glass Uhrenbetrieb GmbH is a watchmaker in Glashütte (Saxony) , which since 2000 for Swatch Group belongs. The company's brand is Glashütte Original .
history
The manufactory's roots go back to 1845. Ferdinand Adolph Lange founded the first watch company in the Saxon Müglitztal . With the silver finds dwindling , unemployment broke out in the area. With a loan from the Saxon state government, Lange began training straw weavers and miners to become watchmakers in Glashütte. The development of a prosperous watch industry began. With the Second World War , watch production was reduced to war-essential goods such as B. Extended time fuse . After the end of the war, the Soviet occupying power dismantled all manufacturing facilities. From 1945 the watchmaking companies were expropriated and nationalized. In 1951, almost all of the previously independent watchmaking companies were merged into one large company, the most important being UROFA and UFAG as well as A. Lange & Söhne . The VEB Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe (GUB) had the task of supplying the GDR and later also the countries of the Comecon with clocks of various types. The best known has become the production of wristwatches, which were also exported in large numbers to the Federal Republic.
Mechanical movements from VEB GUB for men's watches were, for example:
- Formwerk (GUB 62 and 62.2) 1951–56
- round hand-wound movements (GUB 60, 60.1, Gütewerke 60.2 and 60.3, date movements 66 and 66.1) 1951–1961
- Automat (GUB 67 and GUB 68) 1960–68
- Spezimatic (GUB 74 and GUB 75) 1965-79
- Spezichron (GUB 11-26, GUB 11-27) 1979-85
- Specimat (GUB 10-30) 1993-94
A special feature of the historical production in the city of Glashütte were the marine chronometers , the manufacture of which dates back to the 19th century. The production and further development of these mechanical marine chronometers was continued in the VEB GUB until 1976.
After the reunification in 1990, the VEB Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe became the Glashütter Uhrenbetrieb GmbH as the legal successor to all previous companies in the Glashütte watch industry. The company then produced mechanical wristwatches under the brand name "GUB" and the brand name "Glashütte Original". While Swiss watch movements (ETA) were installed under the brand name "GUB", the brand name "Glashütte Original" was used at the same time as the first mechanical manufacture caliber again made in Germany with the designation GUB 10-30. Initially, “Glashütte Original” built simple wristwatches that displayed the hour, minute, second and date.
After 1994 the new owners Heinz W. Pfeifer and Alfred Wallner redesigned the product range and increased the quality of the housing. The company also developed new movements: the GUB 12-50 caliber (manual winding) and the GUB 10-60 caliber (automatic chronograph). Existing movements were further developed, and new movements were added in order to be able to offer complications such as the moon phase, power reserve display or perpetual calendar in the watches.
In 2000 the Swatch Group AG bought Glashütter Uhrenbetrieb GmbH .
Historic Products Gallery
Movement of a Glashütte specimatic wristwatch from the 1960s / 70s
Movement of a GUB GmbH automatic caliber 10-30 from the time between 1990 and 1994
Products
Today, the product range extends from the PanoDate models (with manual or automatic movement, chronograph, tourbillon or moon phase) to the “Senator” series to square and sports models. Models in stainless steel are available as well as watches made of gold or platinum.
All Glashütte Original wristwatches are numbered. For each model, a consecutive four-digit serial number is milled into the underside of the housing. This measure not only increases the exclusivity, but also makes an active contribution to buyer protection, because stolen watches can be identified more easily. At Glashütte Original, the entire history of each watch is saved together with this number.
Glashütte Original designed the movements, which were redesigned after 1994, in such a way that typical structural and optical features of Glashütte watchmaking of the past can be recognized. Examples are a 3/4 plate, chatoned jewels and fine adjustment via a gooseneck . Another characteristic is the processing of the surface of the parts of the movement, known as the Glashütte belt grinding .
A conspicuous construction is the so-called panorama date. This is a patented in-house development that displays the date using two concentric discs (units and tens). This date display is therefore much larger and easier to read than the conventional display in a small window. A special feature of the construction is that the middle bar between the units and tens digits can be dispensed with.
The manufactory sells particularly luxurious watches in the “Meisterwerke” model series in limited editions:
- Julius Assmann : The "Julius Assmann 1" (1995) can be worn as a wristwatch or as a pocket watch. With a flying tourbillon and perpetual calendar, it was the most complicated watch produced in Glashütte after 1990. The "Julius Assmann 2" was later created in collaboration with the Meissen porcelain manufactory . The model is decorated with 25 hand-painted motifs from the Meißen Schulz Codex .
- Alfred Helwig Tourbillon , named after Alfred Helwig, inventor of the overhung tourbillon. The hand-wound movement caliber 41 with a salmon-colored dial frames the overhung tourbillon construction of the watch, which is limited to 25 pieces.
The high cost of manufacturing the movements and assembling the watches is the reason for the relatively small number of pieces, coupled with the high price. Around 10,000 watches were sold in 2005.
literature
- Kurt Herkner: Glashütte and its watches. Dormagen 1978.
- Volume 2: Glashütte wristwatches. Dormagen 1993
- Kurt Herkner: Glashütte wristwatches. In: Writings of the Friends of Age Clocks. Volume 31, 1992, pp. 15-41.
- Hans-Heinrich Schmid : "Lexicon of the German watch industry 1850 - 1980: company addresses, production program, company logos, brand names, company histories." (3rd expanded edition 2017); Editor: German Society for Chronometry eV; ISBN 978-3-941539-92-1
- Otto Habinger: wristwatches from the Glashütte factories. In: clocks. Classic timepiece journal. Volume 1, 1992, pp. 37-43.
- Peter Braun: Classic wristwatches. Heel, Königswinter 2000, ISBN 3-89365-854-8 , pp. 48-57
- Gerhard Claussen, Martin Häußermann, Bernd Schaarschmidt, Peter Braun: wristwatches special. Glashütte Original. Manufactory. Mechanics. Masterpieces. Heel, Königswinter 2006, ISBN 3-89880-572-7 .
- Werner Heinrich: Mechanical wristwatches from Glashütte 1950–1980. Movements, calibers, cases. Callwey, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-7667-1719-1 .
Web links
- Website
- Caliber descriptions, Glashütte watch companies, watch models
- Articles about Glashütte Original in the blog "German watchmakers"
- Pictures of Glashütte Original in the "Art of Watchmaking" gallery
Individual evidence
- ↑ Head of Glashütte Original leaves . In: Saxon newspaper . May 24, 2018 ( online [accessed May 24, 2018]).
- ↑ a b Watch Wiki: VEB Glashütter_Uhrenbetriebe ( Memento from January 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Watch Wiki: Heinz W. Pfeifer
Coordinates: 50 ° 51 ′ 4.14 " N , 13 ° 46 ′ 52.5" E