KONTIKI

“Eterna? Never heard of them. Is it one of the new countless Kickstarter watch companies?” That’s pretty much what we hear when we mention Eterna watches. Very few know about this Swiss luxury watch company, founded in 1856 in Grenchen, Switzerland. And very few know that ETA, the largest manufacturer of Swiss watch movements, was founded by Eterna.

Eterna has a very important place in the history of watchmaking. It all started on November 7, 1856, when Dr. Joseph Girard and Urs Schild, a 28-year old school teacher, realized that, with the emerging of the Swiss watch industry, there was a big opportunity for a company producing movements. They established the ébauche (horology: an unassembled or generic watch movement) factory “Dr. Girard & Schild“ and started producing both semi-finished and fully finished watch movements.

In 1866, Dr. Girard left the factory. Urs Schild continued the endeavour with his brother Adolph. When the production of movements became less profitable, the brothers started producing fully assembled watches. The first pocket watch, entirely manufactured in Grenchen, was presented in 1876 and the name of the company was changed to “Präzisionsuhren-Fabrik Gebrüder Schild” (Precision Watches Factory Brothers Schild), better known as “Schild Fréres & Co.” Kon-Tiki. To celebrate this achievement, Eterna designed a

Urs Schild died in 1888 and his two sons took over the company and released the “Eterna” collection in 1890. At this point, the company was employing 300 workers and produced 180 timepieces a day. The collection was so popular that the Eterna label was adopted as the corporate brand name in 1906: “Eterna-Werke, Gebrüder Schild & Co.”

The next big step came in 1948, when Eterna wrote watchmaking history with the Eterna-matic watch movement. Automatic watch movements were subject to wear and tear, affecting their accuracy and reliability. Eterna’s new ball-bearing mounted rotor, mounted on five miniature ball bearings, ran smoothly and reliably, even under extreme conditions. The Eternamatic was a huge hit, and the five ball bearings were chosen as the new logo. The Eterna-matic movement is still in use today.

The Eterna KonTiki

The popular KonTiki Collection commemorates the groundbreaking expedition that Thor Heyerdahl, an archaeologist and ethnologist, took in 1947 to prove the theory that South Americans migrated from the east and not the west to

Edition “1973” Super KonTiki ETA 2824-2, power reserve 38h. Milanese bracelet. wanted to prove that pre-Columbian natives of South America could reach Polynesia on a primitive raft with help from just the Humboldt current and the eastern winds. Wearing Eterna watches on their wrists, Heyerdahl and five other scientists reached the Raroia atoll in Polynesia after 101 days, on a simple Balsa-wood raft named after the Incan sun god populate Polynesia. Heyerdahl collection of rugged and sturdy pieces to commemorate this iconic trip for explorers everywhere.

The Eterna KonTiki is available in a variety of styles from the classic automatic Kontiki with pyramid shaped appendices to the Super Kontiki diver.

Available at Time & Gold, Vancouver; Atelier Lou, Montréal.