Closed | Important watches – Saturday 15 November 2014

The company ”La Glycine” was founded in 1914 by watchmaker and entrepreneur Eugène Meylan who founded, owned and co-owned a number of companies in the business. His goal was to come up with new solutions within watchmaking and registered many new patents.

In 1930 he bought the company Chronomuri S.A which was on its way to apply for patent on automatic movements, a brand new innovation for wristwatches. He renamed the company to E.M.S.A (Eugène Meylan S.A) and started making this bumper automatic module which was mounted on the original movement Cal Venus 60-II. The new movements were first sold to other companies but between the years 1933 and 1935 they were only used by Glycine Watch Company and Pretto Watch Company, both owned by Meylan. From the beginning the movements were signed E.M.S.A but were changed in 1935 when Glycine Watch Company took over the patent.

In the early 1940’s the times were getting tougher and in 1942 Glycine Watch Company was split. The production of movements came to be a part of the alliance of companies which were saved by Suisse government and banking (Allgemeine Schweizerische Uhrenindustrie AG / ASUAG). Glycine survived the crises though and is still today a well known brand in the business.