The watches from IWC are not the only pieces of legend. The story of how International Watch Co. Ltd. came into existence has a certain adventurous quality about it. IWC has a dynamic history - the results of which can be found on the wrists of discerning watch lovers around the world.
IWC originated than 140 years ago in Boston where the talented and enterprising watchmaker Florentine Ariosto Jones was looking for an opportunity to set up on his own and do things much differently and better than his colleagues in the flourishing American watch industry. As the director of F. Howard Watch & Cie at that time, he had of course heard of the little country of Switzerland and its outstanding watchmakers. He was fired up by the information that workers in the Swiss watch industry produced their watches for amazingly low wages and in the main with old machines. Wages in Switzerland were then still really low, something that may seem surprising today.
And so a compelling business idea came to F. A. Jones: Why not manufacture quality watches in Switzerland under more favourable conditions, but with new and better machines, for the North American market? His idea was conceived, planned and carried out: in New York Jones set up a sales organization with two business partners where pocket watch movements manufactured in Switzerland were to be put in cases and then sold throughout North America.
The company was given a grandsounding name: International Watch Company. Jones set off by boat to Europe with his watchmaker friend Louis Kidder. Along with a whole host of ideas, the two men also took with themmachines for the mass production of parts and finished design drawings for the first Swiss manufactured watches. Initial surprise: in the watchmaking centres of western Switzerland where Jones had intended setting up his business the innovator was given the cold shoulder. The locals, who mainly produced watch parts in their homes, feared the modern machines and the concept of mass production even if it did have the indisputable advantage of consistent quality.
This is where the story could have ended. But in western Switzerland Jones met Heinrich Moser, a versatile industrialist from Schaffhausen. He made the American an offer that was tempting even if not completely altruistic: he could start immediately in Schaffhausen, a small town in northern Switzerland the American had certainly never heard of until then – in industrial buildings Moser owned. What persuaded him was that a source of energy was already available there for the machines – electricity was not even a consideration then. A hydrostation built by Moser brought the power required for the machines directly into the factory using shafts and long transmission cables. So in 1868 Jones arrived in Schaffhausen – and Schaffhausen, a long way from western Switzerland, got a watch factory. Jones was, therefore, able to realize his bold ideas. Even his principle of manufacturing highquality watches with consistent tolerances worked – and this was the beginning of the reputation now enjoyed by Schaffhausen watches throughout the world.
