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Une autre histoire autour de Zenith en anglais désole pour toi jh


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écrit par Mohamed le 30 mai 2002 21:04:29:

November 15, 2000

I, Oscar Waldan, established Waldan International in 1979 and have maintained ownership of the company. The only other fine watch companies which are still under original ownership are Rolex and Patek Philippe.

I established Waldan International with the idea of resuscitating the chronograph business in Switzerland. From the early seventies to the middle of the eighties, few, if any, new chronograph watches were produced in Switzerland. Seeing an opportunity, I managed to buy 100 retro Valjoux 88 movements in 1979, and I produced 100 chronograph watches for Tiffany and Tourneau. I subsequently produced 100 watches with the famous El Primero 3019PHF chronograph movement under the Ulysse Nardin name, since at that time I was not known. I had made a contractual arrangement with Mr. Schmidt from Ogival who also owned the name Ulysse Nardin to buy this name for a one year period with an option to buy the company thereafter. These first 100 watches were phenomenally successful, not only because they were chronographs, but because of my classic design as well as the quality of the cases and dials. When Ulysse Nardin learned about the success of these watches, they assumed it was due to their brand name. They then refused to sell me the company name, saying, "If you can do it, we can do it too". As a result, I decided to register both the Waldan International and Ekegren Geneve names.

At this time, the Swiss watch companies were not interested in pursuing the chronograph business. In fact, in 1977 Universal Geneve liquidated all their gold chronographs at cost, and in 1980, I learned that Zenith Movado had thousands of Zenith automatic chronograph movements that they were unable to market. Actually, some of their movements were originally created by a small company named Martel, founded in 1912 which specialized in complicated movements, especially chronographs. In 1965, this company was liquidated and since Zenith was their prime customer, they took over and renamed the calibre 2511 to 2522 PC, also making an automatic movement out of it. These movements had been produced between 1966 and 1968, and by 1980 they had decided to liquidate these movements. Between 1980 and 1981, Zenith and Movado were closing out their gold bracelet chronographs in the United States at the price of gold scrap.

Considering my success with the 100 Valjoux watches, I felt that new chronographs had a great potential. Collectors had expressed great interest in new chronographs and complicated watches. In addition, from my knowledge of the watch industry, I was aware that used chronographs often suffered damages by so-called watch makers.

I contacted Zenith and purchased all their moonphase chronograph movements, even though the movements were not even assembled. I then launched a campaign to promote chronographs in Switzerland as well as in the United States.

At this time, I also contacted a colleague of mine, Mr. Pierre Blum from Ebel, and told him about the liquidation at Zenith. He purchased all their chronograph movements without moonphase.

In 1982, I visited a friend of mine, Mr. Kubel Wilsdorf, a member of the family of the owners of Rolex. I showed him my watch, and he expressed an interest in it, so I left my watch with him to study. Because of my enthusiasm, Rolex undertook the project of marketing chronographs as well. Subsequently, the Zenith company decided to restart the production of their chronograph movements. Since it is customary in Switzerland to discard old tools, they had difficulty producing these movements, but they eventually succeeded.

In 1983, I met with Henry Stern, the owner of Patek Philippe, in order to get his advice on how to find someone to produce perpetual chronograph movements. He recommended Dubois Depraz. I subsequently contacted Dubois Depraz and paid him to study how to make a perpetual movement. He offered to make the movements for me, but at an exorbitant price: SF 150,000 for the tools and SF 9,000 per piece for the parts, i.e. unassembled. Needless to say, I did not proceed with the project. Dubois Depraz then learned from Zenith that Ebel had also bought chronograph movements, and subsequently made a deal with Ebel on the basis of the research that I had paid for. Eventually Ebel conceded that it was only fair to let me produce the movements as well. The ultimate irony of this story is that Mr. Manfredini of Zenith refused to sell me the additional parts needed to make the movements perpetual. Incidently, one would assume that without Rolex buying this movement from Zenith, they would not have had the resources nor the need to restart making this movement and to a logic stand sustain the Zenith watch company in business.

This is the story of the chronograph watches.

In addition to chronographs, Waldan International also produces fine gold quartz watches for men and ladies. In the 1980s, I supplied Tiffany & Co. with 80% of all their Tiffany label gold quartz watches. At this time, I also supplied about 30% of Cartier's gold quartz watches. While I have chosen to focus on the chronograph business, I still continue to produce quartz watches for a few famous jewelers in Brazil, England, and the United States.

Sincerely,

Oscar Waldan



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