Mido SA
The Mido is a Swiss watch manufacturer , and now has its headquarters in Le Locle in the Swiss Jura . The name Mido comes from the Spanish Yo mido (German: I measure). Mido watches are sold by 2,400 official dealers in 50 countries. The brand belongs to the Swatch Group , world market leader in the watch industry.
Company history and technology development
Mido was founded on November 11, 1918 by the Swiss watchmaker Georges Schaeren under the name G. Schaeren & Cie in Solothurn (Switzerland). From 1924 his brother Henri, who had been Commercial Director at Omega until then, joined the company . The company found its niche in the production of clocks in the design of autogrills for popular car brands such as Buick , Bugatti , Fiat and Excelsior . However, the first models in the Art Deco style of the early days were decisive for the company's image . In 1940 the company specialized in waterproof watches . From 1944 onwards, watches with automatic winding were made.
With the introduction of the Multifort in 1934, the first watch was presented that could combine four properties: automatic movement, waterproof , anti-magnetic and shockproof . The Multifort was due to the sales figures until 1950 a mainstay in the company's portfolio. In the same year, Mido reached another milestone with the development of the non-retractable main spring in the movement.
In 1945, Mido was the first watch manufacturer in the world to bring a chronograph onto the market with the elements of the stop function arranged in the middle. In 1954, Mido also created the most efficient winding mechanism to date. In 1959, the then revolutionary monocoque housing ( monocoque housing) was introduced with the Mido Ocean Star, which eliminated the then common problems of water tightness in case backs. Another weak point in terms of watertightness was the entrance to the crown shaft. For sealing, Mido used a cork- based system that prevented water from penetrating the watch case even when the crown was pulled out . Although it was developed in 1934, this system was only named in Aquadura with the introduction of the Ocean Star . The design of this Mido range has remained almost unchanged to this day.
In 1967, Mido launched what was then the smallest automatic watch that was ever made on an assembly line. In the 1970s, Mido drove the development of the then revolutionary digital watches .
In 1972, Mido was taken over by Allgemeine Schweizerische Uhren AG (ASUAG), which later merged with SSIH to form Société Suisse de Microélectronique et d'Horlogerie (SMH), today's Swatch Group , the world's largest watch company.
Newer model series (since 1995) have z. B. an alarm siren for personal protection ( bodyguard ), or automatically adjustable time zones in an analog clock ( world timer ) by pressing the crown .
Trivia
From 1981 the then tennis player Björn Borg promoted Mido.
Sources and individual references
- Company history on company website
- Wristwatches 1/08 page 42
- Website with a chronological history
- Extract from the commercial register for Mido SA
- ^ History or Mido Watches. ( Memento of the original from February 15, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. versace on December 26, 2010, accessed November 11, 2014
- ↑ a b Zai G Zhu: History of Mido Watches. ( Memento of the original from June 23, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Articles3K, accessed November 11, 2014
- ↑ The Attraction Of Mido Watches. ( Memento of the original from February 15, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. articles alley, accessed November 11, 2014
- ↑ History - 1967. mido.ch, accessed on November 11, 2014
