Chapter 358: The Kingdom of Clocks
After eating, Ye Chao stopped being hungry for other delicacies for the time being. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info
He is still shopping, what did the ancients say, it is better to travel thousands of miles than to read thousands of books.
So, he walked, walked, walked......
It's true that I can't grow up a lot of knowledge, whether it's customs or Swiss beauties, of course, fat girls and ugly girls have also seen a lot, but these are automatically ignored by Ye Chao, cough......
As he walked, Ye Chao slipped into a watch shop.
He was fascinated by the clocks there.
Man, like to take...... Ah no, like to bring a watch.
And the Swiss watch is world-renowned. When it comes to Swiss watches, everyone knows about them, and they all come at a high price.
But watchmaking is not native to Switzerland. At the end of the 16th century, religious struggles in France led to a massacre, and the Calvinists fled to Switzerland, bringing with them the technology to make clocks.
This combination of French craftsmanship and the local gold and silver jewellery industry led to the Swiss watchmaking industry. It spreads outward from Geneva, near France, mainly along the Jura Mountains to the northeast, to Schaffhausen in the northeast, and blooms in the northern half of Switzerland.
In the beginning, watchmaking was almost entirely manual. It was only in 1845 that there was watchmaking machinery and mass production, and the industry really became a modern industrial sector.
In the century that followed, watch production rose dramatically, peaking at 104 million watches a year, accounting for 40% of the world's total production, almost all of which were exported. Seven out of every 10 watches exported worldwide come from Switzerland.
Despite this, the Swiss watch industry has remained fragmented for more than three centuries, with the exception of a few famous brands, which have never been highly concentrated, and most of them are small and medium-sized.
In the face of increasing competition in the world, the watchmaking industry raised funds to establish the Swiss Watchmaking Institute in 1921 and the Electronic Watchmaking Center in 1962, both research and development institutions, both based in the city of Neuchâtel.
Before the mid-70s, some new technologies were first introduced in Switzerland. The earliest of these is a liquid crystal digital display, the thinnest watch (less than 1 mm thick), and a body temperature battery in a strap.
In the mid-1970s, it was caught up by Japan and Hong Kong. One is a high-end watch that is highly integrated with jewelry. In the 80s, Swiss watchmakers threw out a series of cheap plastic quartz hand watches, the oldest and most famous of which was called the Swatch.
This is a self-made English word, the last five letters are "watch", and the first two letters are also the beginning letters of the English word "Switzerland". The quartz movement is sealed in the plastic case, so it can't be repaired if it's broken, but it's not easy to break, and it can go two or three years if you replace a small battery.
This type of watch has been very successful in the Western market.
Watchmaking is a traditional industry in Switzerland. The Swiss watch industry first appeared in Geneva in the middle of the 16th century, and by the end of the 16th century, the Geneva watchmaking industry was known for its quality, and the Geneva Watch Association, founded in 1601, was the world's first watch industry association.
At that time, there were more than 500 Manufactures in Geneva, which forced some watchmakers to move to more sparsely populated towns, and the Jura Mountains in the north of Geneva gradually became ideal places for watchmakers to live and produce.
In the 16th and 17th centuries, the accuracy of timekeeping continued to improve due to the continuous improvement of watchmaking techniques. In the 18th and 19th centuries, watchmaking began to advance by leaps and bounds, and in 1842, Adrien Philippe, one of the founders of the famous Patek Philippe watch company, invented the vertical winding clock.
At the same time, the watchmaking industry began to produce complex clocks and introduce special components such as permanent calendars and stopwatches. In 1800, the world's total watch production reached 25 million, and Switzerland accounted for two-thirds of the watch production, surpassing Britain and leading the world.
In the 19th century, factories in Switzerland and the United States mechanized the mass production of watches. The Waltham Watch Company of the United States was a pioneer in the use of advanced and sophisticated mechanical manufacturing technology, but Switzerland beat the biggest competitor in the United States with its more sophisticated and advanced machinery and technology, experienced designers and workers, and a variety of functions and design styles and products.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Switzerland introduced new technologies invented by two great watchmakers, Pierre Frederic Ingold and Georges-Auguste Leschot, to quickly and precisely produce geared bridges and master plates and to invent replaceable internal parts, paving the way for the large-scale and standardization of watch production.
By the beginning of the 20th century, Switzerland was already the world's leader in the watch industry. At that time, the watch began to gradually replace the position of the pocket watch, and the further improvement of the Swiss watch was to miniaturize the chronograph, calendar, tourbillon and automatic winding mechanism of the pocket watch and install it on the watch.
Quartz watches, represented by Japan, were popular in the mid-70s of the 20th century, and the watch industry in various countries turned to electronic timekeeping technology, and the Swiss watch industry was under great pressure from Japanese competition.
In 1978, the watch movement department of the Swiss Microelectronics Group (SMH Group) produced a prototype of a watch only 2 mm thick, making it the thinnest quartz watch in the world at the time.
The final Swatch watch was minus 51 parts, the movement was hidden in a waterproof rubber case, and it was shock-resistant, durable, and low-cost. Once launched, Swatch took the world by storm and became the best-selling watch in the world to this day.
In the 80s of the 20th century, the craze for collecting antique watches exploded all over the world, and people began to appreciate the craftsmanship of mechanical watches, study the unique inventions, designs and personalized styles of different watchmakers, and the history of the development of clocks. The price of old models of watches with special functions from famous watch manufacturers has skyrocketed.
By the end of the 80s, Swiss watchmakers began to produce a series of high-priced mechanical watches, and some mechanical watches with complex structures were once again recognized, and sales of mechanical watches rebounded, regaining their former prestige.
The Swiss watchmaking industry has launched a series of new technological innovations through continuous technological innovation. In 1979, Ebauche produced the world's thinnest watch, at just 0.98 mm;
In 1982, Longines produced a high-precision analog quartz watch, and in 1988, Le Phare Jean d'Eve, Switzerland, produced the first automatic quartz watch that did not require a battery, powered by the movement of the wrist.
In 1988, ETA produced the world's most complex quartz chronometer movement, in 1991, Ronda developed a 20-year-old lithium-iodine battery quartz movement, and in 1992, IWC produced one of the world's most complex mechanical watches, with 750 parts and 21 functions.
The 100-year-old Rolex Group is today the second largest watch company in Switzerland, with annual sales of almost CHF 3 billion and 3,700 employees in Switzerland.
The composition of the group is very "elite" - it produces only Rolex watches, which have been the world's largest salesmen for many years, and its sister brand TUDOR watches.
These two prestigious brands make the Rolex Group the largest producer of luxury watches in Switzerland, with half of the gold produced in Switzerland used in finished Rolex watches each year.
It's not that Ye Chao hasn't seen famous watches, but it is the first time to come to the famous watch kingdom in person, so it is necessary to go in and see all kinds of famous watches with his own eyes.