Original vintage 1978 Swiss Ebauches SA ETA advert, "With AS Gabrit Quartz Calibres, their Trip Could Last Until 1991."
Dimensions: Approx. 16.5 inches wide by 10.75 inches high - this is a two-page advert.
ETA SA Manufacture Horlogère Suisse develops and produces quartz, mechanical and Swatch watch movements. The company’s headquarters are in Grenchen (Solothurn) - ETA Manufacture Horlogère Suisse is the motorist of time at the heart of the Swatch Group.
Before becoming a single undertaking in 1985, the ETA SA brand consisted of a number of ébauche factories across the whole of the Swiss Jura arc grouped together under the name Ebauches SA (as seen in this advert from 1978). This plurality allowed Ebauches SA to offer a wide range of products, as each affiliated company specialized in a particular niche (simple watches for men, chronographs, small watches for women etc.).
The group’s first ébauche workshop and business opened in Fontainemelon (Neuchâtel) in 1793 by four master watchmakers. This date marks the founding of what is now ETA SA Manufacture Horlogère Suisse, who would continue to act as a motorist of time over the next four centuries thanks to the expertise of its employees and their mastery of watchmaking techniques.
Its production sites, located in the foothills of Jura and the Swiss cantons of Valais and Ticino, combine the company’s full expertise in the production and assembly of movements and watches which are considered global benchmarks for their reliability and performance.
The History Behind Ebauches SA
Ebauches SA was a Swiss holding company for the production of watch movements (as noted above, ébauches) and parts, founded in Neuchâtel in 1926. The company played a central role in the Swiss watch industry cartel until its integration into what became the Swatch Group in the 1980s.
Ebauches was founded in 1926 by three major Swiss watch component manufacturers: A. Schild SA (ASSA) in Granges, Fabrique d'horlogerie de Fontainemelon (FHF), and A. Michel SA (AMSA) in Granges. The company opposed the export of movement templates (chablons) to prevent the production of watches abroad under the Swiss label.
In 1931, Ebauches joined ASUAG, completing the Swiss watch cartel. Despite being part of the same holding company, the various subsidiaries, led by family dynasties, continued to compete fiercely with one another.
By 1968–1969, Ebauches had grown to include twenty-three subsidiaries in Switzerland, three abroad, and employed 10,000 people. The subsidiary Ebauches Electroniques Marin (EEM) was founded in 1970, shortly before the collapse of the watch cartel, which had neglected the growing market for electronic watches, effectively abandoning the field to Seiko advantage with its revolutionary Astron quartz movement.
In 1974 – four years before this advert – Ebauches dominated 25% of the global market for mechanical movements. However, beginning in 1978 shortly after this advert, a significant wave of mergers took place among the holding's companies. In 1982, ETA SA took over operational management of Ebauches.
The next year, in 1983, Asuag-Ebauches merged with SSIH to form Asuag-SSIH, which became the Société de Microélectronique et d'Horlogerie in 1985, then the Swatch Group in 1998.
