180 YEARS OF

only a small number of suppliers for watch movements,
and these suppliers kept their prices high.
In 1866, Francillon took a dramatic step away from
the traditional comptoir and towards the creation of a
modern factory. He purchased two adjoining pieces of
property to the south of Saint-Imier on the banks of a
small river. e name of this area was known as “les
longines,” or “the long meadows.” Construction of the
factory began in 1867 where increasingly mechanized
watch manufacturing began to take shape. It was also in
1867 that Francillon introduced the rst brand name in
the watch industry that was not based on a family name.
e name “Longines” was now engraved on all the company’s
watches along with the winged hourglass, which is
the oldest valid trademark in the registry of the World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
Watches produced by the Longines factory also had
more modern features than those produced by the
comptoir. Francillon decided against using a winding
key for his watches; starting in 1867, the company only
produced watches with a crown-winding mechanism. In
addition to the Lépine watches with a cylinder escapement,
the factory also produced models with a Swiss
lever escapement. e factory was also beginning to produce
smaller ladies’ watches with 12-, 13- and 14-lignes
movements. During the rst years in the new factory,
Longines produced watches with in-house calibers as
well as others with supplied movements. e factory
produced approximately 15,000 watches each year during
the rst half of the 1870s.
180 Years of Longines | HISTORY
Workshop in
the Longines
factory, 1900
LONGINES SPECIAL WatchTime | 65