IWC (International Watch&Co)

There is an interesting story behind the brand name of the ICW Company. It was founded in 1868 by the American Florentine Aristo Jones. Jones was a daring business man, who had the attention of everyone with a very special idea: He wanted to export American technology for manufacturing watches to the cheap wage country of Switzerland, and then re-import the goods back to the USA again for selling. But he did not reckon with the opposition of the politicians in Geneva, and in the West of Switzerland: these were looking for secure jobs, and not for an employer, who they thought was a carpetbagger and an intruder. A by chance meeting with the Schaffhauser watch manufacturer Johann Heinrich Moser saved the international watch company from ruin. Moser convinced Jones, to choose Schaffhausen instead of Switzerland as a location, where Moser who only shortly before had built a water power plant driven by the river Rhein, which should supply both watch manufacturers with cheaper energy. In 1868 it was time: Jones moved his IWC works to Schaffhausen. This brand name of luxury watches is now part of the international operating Richement Group.

Notable models of watches from IWC: Da Vinci, Portugieser, Grande Complication, Portugieser Perpetual Calendar, Große Fliegeruhr, Spifire Chronograph, Spitfire UTC, Spitfire Mark XV, GST Chrono-Rattrapante, Portofino.