Timepieces Trade Market

Vacheron & Constantin : History

The definitive name of one of the oldest Swiss watch brands, like that of many others, only came into being through the association of two personalities.
In this case they were Jean-Marc Vacheron and François Constantin.

The former had already set himself up in Geneva as an independent watchmaker in 1755.
Business was good until the French Revolution broke out in 1789.
Then their mostly aristocratic clientele simply vanished overnight.
It was only through major efforts that Jean-Marc Vacheron's descendants managed to save their firm in the next century.
In the end, all that was left to be done was to look for a financially sound business partner.
They found him in François Constantin, son of a wealthy grain merchant, who had the requisite experience as a watch dealer and who was committed to the welfare of the joint enterprise.
Business continued to grow.

In 1839 Vacheron & Constantin pulled off a real coup with the involvement of the gifted watchmaker and inventor, Georges-Auguste Leschot.
With the help of the machine tools developed by Leschot, precision watch movements could be made far more cheaply.

In 1880 the factory registered the Maltese cross as its trademark.

In 1910, Vacheron & Constantin started producing high-value wristwatches.

In the following years, the collection comprised simple and complicated watches, as well as models with plain or avant-garde styling.
The range of complicated watches included chronographs, repetition and calendar timepieces.
The indispensible ébauches often came from LeCoultre.
Not least for this reason the two companies entered into a close cooperation agreement in 1938.
However this could do nothing to overcome Vacheron & Constantin's financial difficulties.

Charles Constantin found himself therefore obliged to sell the majority shareholding to Georges Ketterer in 1940.

In the next decades, the Vacheron & Constantin Company rejoiced in its role as a luxury watch-assembler and marketer, known in the trade as an établisseur, using mainly LeCoultre movements.

In the early eighties, the brand was acquired by the Saudi oil sheikh, Yamani.

Since the fall of 1996, the South African magnate Johann Rupert has had the last word at Vacheron & Constantin as ultimate owner of the Vendôme Group.