Guinand

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Helmut Sinn

German watch manufacturer

Short survey

After Helmut Sinn had sold his watch company and brand Sinn, he took over the majority of "Guinand Watch Co SA" in 1996 and with the brands Chronosport, Guinand and the pocket watch brand Jubilar again followed his vision of a watch, which should be "clearly legible, of high quality and still affordable".

Company history

The history of the company Guinand goes far back into the past, namely to the year 1865. At that time the brothers Julien-Alcide and Charles Leon Guinand founded the company Guinand Freres in Les Brenets, which dealt with the manufacturing and trading of watches. The watches were mainly sold in Germany, Scandinavia and America. The company quickly began to flourish. At the end of the seventies of the 19th Century, due to an economic crisis, the American market broke away.

As a way out of the crisis Leon Guinand, who was a gifted watchmaker, developed his own chronograph. In 1881 he began with the delivery. This decision, to specialize in chronographs and offer a technically superior product, was trendsetting for the entire subsequent history.

Building on the chronographs soon further complications were added, such as a chronograph with minute counter, a "chronograph- rattrapante" and "Compteurs-rattrapante", ie chronographs and stopwatches with rattrapante.

At the turn of the century the production already included a complete series of complicated watches. In about 1900 Leon Guinand attracted attention in the scientific world ​​with the development of a new tachymeter chronograph.

Already 1910 the switch of the production from pocket to bracelet chronographs had begun. Continually a range of complex wrist chronographs was now developed. In addition, further products for special applications were developed, such as the model "de compteur à retour", ie a stopwatch with return to the zero position in flight, and a new "Compteur-rattrapante".

In 1945 Georges-Henrie Guinand, the son of company founder Leon Guinand, transformed the company into a stock corporation. Since then the company is called Guinand Watch Co. S.A.

In the heyday of mechanical watches the name Guinand has become synonymous with the rattrapante chronograph in general. The list of customers from this period includes over 200 different brands and reaches from "A" for Ancora to "Z" for Zenith. Thus, thanks to its specialization in complicated chronographs, the company survived even the big brand dying, which attacked Switzerland at the end of the 1970s due to the quartz crisis.

Model ranges

• Buren 12 Chronograph, with the original calibre Buren 12, Chronograph with microrotor
• Serie 20, 21, pilot's chronograph with automatic winding
• Serie 31, 31-20, 31-30, large three-hands-watch with modified and refined pocket watch movement
• Serie 40, rugged pilot's chronograph with automatic winding
• Serie 41, high-quality pilot's chronograph with automatic winding and modification as tricompax chronograph
• Serie 60, heavier and more robust chronograph with automatic winding
• Serie 90, large three-hands-watch with standard pocket watch movement, manual winding
• Flying Officer, chronograph with 24-hour display, Valjoux 7760 manual winding calibre

A special world time watch

A watchmaking speciality is the Guinand World Time Watch WZU-5 constructed by Helmut Sinn on base of a Unitas calibre and produced since 2003. It can show the time in 5 different cities on 5 different continents of the earth independently.

• World Time Watch WZU-5

Jubilar and Chronosport

The model ranges or brands Jubilar (pocket watches) and Chronosport (chronograph) are now integrated into the range of Guinand. Also available are on-board clocks for sports cars and aircraft cockpits as well as coveted special editions of historic collectors' watches, that are available only in small editions.

Adress

Guinand GmbH
Managing director: Ernst-August Matthias Klüh
Hausener Weg 61
D-60489 Frankfurt am Main

Weblinks

• Guinand, official site