IWC Schaffhausen

IWC was founded in 1868 by Florentine Ariosto Jones, a 27-year-old American engineer and watchmaker who had been deputy director at E. Howard & Co. in Boston. Jones traveled to Switzerland seeking to combine Swiss craftsmanship with American manufacturing techniques. He established his factory in Schaffhausen, in northeastern Switzerland, with the help of industrialist Heinrich Moser who had recently built the town's first hydroelectric plant. Jones's original plan was to produce high-quality watches in Switzerland for export to the American market. The company faced early struggles with tariffs, financing, and technical problems, leading to bankruptcy in the late 1870s. In 1880, Johann Rauschenbach-Vogel, a local industrialist and stockholder, acquired the company for 280,000 Swiss francs. The Rauschenbach family would own IWC for four generations. Notable among the family's in-laws was Carl Gustav Jung, the famous psychologist, who married Emma Rauschenbach. The company weathered world wars, the Great Depression, and was one of five manufacturers producing B-Uhren pilot's watches for the German Luftwaffe during WWII. In 1978, VDO Adolf Schindling AG took a majority stake in IWC during the quartz crisis, helping finance the company's innovative work in titanium and ceramic watchmaking. In 1991, the LMH Group was formed with IWC, Jaeger-LeCoultre, and A. Lange & Söhne. The Richemont Group acquired LMH in July 2000 for CHF 2.8 billion, making IWC part of one of the world's leading luxury goods conglomerates.