Prosper Nordmann

Prosper Nordmann (also spelled Nordman) was a French-Swiss watchmaker, inventor, and businessman who brought complicated watchmaking to the United States. Later in life he returned to Switzerland to live in Geneva before moving to Paris. Nordmann worked at Waltham Watch and established what would become Electa.

Biography

Prosper Nordmann was born in Hegenheim in the Alsace region close to Basel, Switzerland. He emigrated to the United States to pursue a watchmaking career. Nordmann pioneered the mechanized construction of complicated watches in New York in 1876, including repeaters and chronographs. Nordmann registered patents with other pioneering Swiss and American watchmakers, including Henry-Alfred Lugrin, Charles Morlet, and Charles Schlatter, as well as Albert Bonzon of Cuba.

In 1890, Nordmann moved back to Switzerland, establishing a watchmaking business at Rue Neuve-du-Temple 42 and Boulevard James-Fazy 6 in Geneva. He continued to specialize in complicated movements, and continued to work with Charles Morlet who also moved from New York to Geneva at this time.

Nordmann impressed the crowds at the 1896 Swiss National Exposition in Geneva with his simple movements, counter chronographs, counter rattrapantes, simple repeaters, and chronograph rattrapante watches, which he finished and regulated. Nordmann claimed that the roughing, finishing, and machining was entirely done by mechanical processes in his workshops using patented systems he designed. He also showed a chronographic clock precise to one-fifth of a second, for use at racetracks and velodromes with an electrical trigger for starting, stopping, and resetting the hands.

Confident in his work, Nordmann incorporated his company between May and December of 1896, raising 200,000 francs by selling shares. The firm, called the Société d'Horlogerie de Genève, was headquartered in Paris at Rue de Mulhouse 4 with a branch in Geneva to handle manufacturing at Rue de St-Jean 8.

By 1901 Nordmann had relocated to Paris, France. He continued his watchmaking work there, registering more patents.

On March 14, 1901, the Société d'Horlogerie de Genève relocated to La Chaux-de-Fonds. Prosper Nordmann was replaced as director by Jules Grumbach of La Chaux-de-Fonds, who shared management with Charles Perret. Under Grumbach the company took the brand name Electa, rising to some success before bankruptcy and acquisition by Gallet.