Auguste Agassiz set up a comptoir d'établissage in Saint-Imier, in the Bernese Jura, in 1832. His nephew Ernest Francillon took over in 1854 and made the decision that defined the firm for the next century and a half: he industrialised. In 1867 Francillon built a single, modern factory by a meadow on the bend of the river Suze. The Swiss called the curve "Les Longines" — the long meadows. The factory took its name. The brand took its name from the factory.
The winged hourglass
In 1889, Longines registered its winged hourglass trademark with what would become WIPO. It is, in 2026, the oldest registered trademark anywhere in the world in continuous use without alteration. The same hourglass appears today on the dials of Longines watches, just as it did in the nineteenth century.
The firm's early twentieth century reads like a list of the era's defining expeditions. Roald Amundsen carried Longines pocket watches to the South Pole in 1911. Richard Byrd took one over the North Pole in 1926. Howard Hughes wore one when he flew around the world in 91 hours in 1938. But the great moment came in May 1927, when Charles Lindbergh — alone in the Spirit of St Louis — used a Longines chronometer to determine his longitude and reach Paris from Long Island, the first solo non-stop transatlantic flight. Lindbergh, after he landed, designed his own pilot's watch with the firm: the Hour Angle, still in production, still extraordinary.
"For navigation in the air, only the simplest and most accurate instruments will serve." — Charles Lindbergh, 1927
The four references that matter
- The Lindbergh Hour Angle (1931) — co-designed by Lindbergh; calculates longitude from celestial position. Still essentially unchanged.
- The Heritage Military 1938 — the original British military trench watch, faithfully reissued.
- The Conquest Heritage (1954) — the firm's slim chronometer-rated dress watch in a perfect 35mm case.
- The Master Triple Calendar Moonphase — complete calendar and moonphase for a third the price of comparable Swiss houses.
The quiet contender
Longines today sits in the middle of the Swatch Group portfolio. Above it: Omega, Breguet, Blancpain. Below it: Hamilton, Tissot, Mido. The firm sells more watches than almost any of its more famous siblings and gets a fraction of the press. The strategy, for the past decade, has been the Heritage line — careful reissues of vintage references, often nearly indistinguishable from the originals, at prices that remain remarkably honest. A new Heritage Diver costs less than $3,000. A Lindbergh Hour Angle on leather, roughly the same. There is, at this end of the market, no comparable proposition.