Lemania
The Swiss watch and clockwork factory Lemania was founded in 1884 by Alfred Lugrin (1858–1920), who had acquired his specialist knowledge as an unskilled worker at Jaeger-LeCoultre in Le Sentier . Because of the outstanding quality of his movements, Lugrin received high awards and gold medals at exhibitions in Milan in 1906 and in Bern in 1914 . Right from the start, he specialized in the manufacture of chronographs , stopwatches and watches with a repeater mechanism.
The factory operated under the name of Lugrin SA until 1930, when Lugrin's son-in-law Marius Meylan established the brand name Lemania Watch Co., based in l'Orient . In 1932 Lemania, Omega and Tissot merged to form the SSIH group. The close collaboration with Omega resulted in great chronograph calibers . The Lemania caliber 2310 (Omega caliber 321) became famous with the Omega Speedmaster Professional, which was qualified by NASA for manned space flights in 1962 and accompanied Buzz Aldrin on his first steps on the moon on July 21, 1969 . The caliber 1883 (Omega caliber 864), which has an improved finish , was used for the watches with a sight glass in the back .
With the advent of electronic watches in the 1970s, sales of mechanical watches by the SSIH Group plummeted. In 1980 the creditor banks commissioned Nicolas Hayek to restructure the group. In the course of a management buyout , Lemania separated from the SSIH Group in 1981 and changed its name to Nouvelle Lemania . In 1992 Nouvelle Lemania came to Groupe Horloger Breguet and was taken over by the Swatch Group in 1999 . The Lemania calibers are still used today in watches from numerous well-known brands.