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The Eterna Brand
Since 1856, Eterna has been a byword for the manufacture of high quality mechanical watches. It its long history, Eterna has introduced a great many significant developments as a pioneer in the art of watchmaking. Revolutionary innovations, such as the ball bearing mounted rotor or the first wristwatch with an alarm function, came from the House of Eterna. Today, the traditional Swiss brand is owned by Ferdinand A. Porsche and is therefore one of the last great independent manufacturers worldwide. As Porsche Design licensee, Eterna is responsible for the successful Porsche Design watch collections.
The Eterna·matic
Eterna's first automatic movement was the cal. 834, first manufactured in 1938. It had hammer winding in one direction only. Eterna's last hammer wind movement (the cal. 1158) was made in 1946. In 1948 Eterna produced their first rotor automatic, the 'Eterna·matic', in the ladies' cal. 1198. The outstanding innovation in this calibre was the mounting of the rotor on 5 ball bearings, each of 0.65mm diameter. This arrangement produced a particularly low friction and rugged mounting for the rotor, which together with a low friction springless double click wheel allowed bi-directional winding. A similar layout was used in the first men's rotor movement, the cal. 1248 of 1950. The double click wheel was later replaced (1956) by two thin beryllium click wheels side by side, which increased transmission capability and allowed a considerable reduction in movement height. So successful was the basic design of this movement, that all Eterna automatic movements ever since have incorporated the 5 ball bearings and have been called 'Eterna·matic'. The 5 balls became Eterna's trademark.
Eterna: History and Innovation
What is now known as Eterna S.A. began life in 1856 in Grenchen, a small town in the north-west of Switzerland near other famous watch-making towns such as Biel, La Chaux de-Fonds and Le Locle. The original name of the company was U. Schild, after its co-founder schoolteacher Urs Schild, who set up the company with doctor Josef Girard. In 1906 the name of the company changed to 'Eterna-Werke', and in 1932 it divided into 'Eterna S.A.' which specialised in precision movements, and 'ETA S.A.' which concentrated on making raw movements. Today, ETA is a giant manufacturer of ébauches, the raw movements which are bought by other watch manufacturers to be used as is or modified in some way. There would be few manufacturers around today who would not have an ETA movement inside one or more of their watches.
Eterna's reputation for building rugged and reliable watches received significant notoriety in 1947, when Eternas were worn by Norwegian anthropologist and explorer Thor Heyerdahl and his crew during their successful 101-day, 6920 km (4300 mi) Pacific Ocean voyage from Peru to Polynesia. Not convinced by the conventional wisdom of the day that Polynesia was settled by travelers from the west of it, Heyerdahl made the east-west journey on a balsa wood raft, named the Kon-Tiki, to prove Native South Americans could have migrated to Pacific Islands. The Kon-Tiki was modeled on rafts used by ancient Peruvians. Eterna celebrated this remarkable feat by naming its sports watch model the Eterna Kon-Tiki, and it's been popular ever since. Ferdinand Alexander Porsche acquired Eterna in 1995, thus continuing his association with watchmaking which commenced with Orfina and then later with IWC. Also in that year the Pininfarina design studio was commissioned to produce a new line of watches, the '1935' series, including the rectangular 'Art Deco' model. |
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