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Figure 6. The Astrolon Watch “Idea 2001”
(manufacturers of alarm clocks already used ebonite
or phenoplast for cases half a century earlier [35]). In
the 1970s polymers were introduced in movements
until watches were almost completely made of plastic
(except for the balance, spiral and barrel). Two watches
thus marked the history of the clock industry: first,
in 1971, the Astrolon watch, from Tissot (fig. 6), the
“first mechanical watch made of plastic” which was a
technical success but a commercial failure; and then of
course, in 1982, the well known Swatch watch (fig.7).
Even if they were and are still used in all product
ranges, plastics remain associated with down-market
watches. It is for this reason too that these materials
have a fundamental cultural value, because they
are associated with the democratisation of watches
and the sociological changes to which they testify.
Claude-Alain Künzi thus underlines the historical
interest and the social and symbolic impact of cheap
watches: “in the 19 th century, making it possible for
workmen to own a watch meant giving them a way
to control working time, by exercising control over
hours deducted by the owner.” [36]. It is thus a true
“countervailing power” which was often commented
upon by Marx and Engels [37].
Clockmaking in the Neuchâtel mountains was always
characterised by a variety of products, including the
“economic” watch, optimising value for money and
the cheap watch sometimes sacrificing quality for
price [38]. J.-M. Barrelet describes a heterogeneous
production often of low quality and quite removed
from the image one has of a prestige industry [39]:
“The absence of corporation in the Mountains
allowed great creative freedom. Anything could be
produced: large volume clocks, simple systems and
relatively cheap pocket watches, as well as more
refined even luxurious pendulums, automata, etc
(…). Anything appeared on the market, including
the best and (often) the worst, to the great chagrin
of upholders of tradition who called for firmer
regulation of the profession and its commercial and
technical standards” [40]. Therefore the strength of
the Swiss watch and clock industry, in addition, was
that it developed in each period a range of low-priced
watches, from Roskopf’s Proletarian (fig.8) in 1867,
to the famous Swatch of the 1980s. Historians have
recently become aware of this: “The objects also
embody these deep-rooted changes. Luxury or cheap
watches, charms or works of art, they express the
potential of the Neuchâtel watch and clockmaking
system as much as its limits” [41].
Plastics played a major role in technical developments
which accompanied watch and clockmaking,
testifying to this industry’s dynamism which,
contrary to the conservative image that one might
have, was always at the cutting edge of innovation.
Thus, from the 19 th century, Neuchâtel clock and
Figure 7. A model of a Swatch watch
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