Two Stitch Straps team recently had an opportunity to visit Longines manufacture located in a beautiful little town called St-Imier. One of the things that left a great impression on us was the Longines museum. It consists of several different themed rooms. Our tour started with the archives, where the extensive books keep records of millions of watches produced since the beginning of the manufacture in 1867 all the way up to early 1960s, when the technology shifted to micro films.
The Brand Heritage team from Longines offers an interesting service of issuing certificates for vintage Longines watches with all the important details, such as year of production or place of purchase, based on data from this archive and micro films.
We also had the opportunity to see a lot of interesting watches, such as the Charles Lindberg pilot model, as well as the replica of his St Louis aircraft. A very interesting piece to see was Majetek, a pilot watch made for the Czechoslovakian Army. There were also some early Longines diver models, as well as the pocket chronograph used to time Sir Malcolm Campbell's world water speed record in 1937.
Besides watches, there was also a very interesting piece of timing equipment used for sport events, as well as different kinds of aviation equipment. The Longines promotional film that we saw, which was recently found, was recorded in the early 1900s.
