Eska

Eska and Royce were Swiss watch brands of S. Kocher & Co SA, founded in 1918.

History

S. Kocher was founded in Granges in 1918. By the 1970s, they sold mass-market and upscale watches with the Eska and Royce brands. Although originally differentiated, these brands came together as "sisters" in the 1970s and 1980s. Royce became a sporting brand while Eska focused on the high end.

Kocher was slow to adopt quartz movements and struggled through the late 1970s and early 1980s. The company abandoned manufacturing at this time in order to focus on licensing and design. The last appearance of these brands at a major show was 1986.

Eska

The Eska brand was the styling and technology leader for S. Kocher.

Kocher set up Eska Relogios Ltd. in Brazil in 1949. Thus, the brand remained successful there for decades, and included local manufacturing.

In the 1960s, Eska focused on ultra-thin and jewelry watches. This effort strongly differentiated the brand from the sister Royce watches.

By the 1970s, the two brands were closer together in the market and were sold as sister offerings. It was not until 1976 that Eska added quartz movements to the lineup.

In 1980, Eska unveiled their own quartz Reverso model, the Eska Sesame, with styling nearly identical to the Jaeger-LeCoultre offering then experiencing a renaissance. The company adopted a stylish gold and black color scheme in 1983.

Royce

The Royce brand was sold independently of the Eska brand. Royce simply advertised as "Royce Switzerland Grenchen" or "Royce Swiss" and the dial featured just the "Royce" name. The company's logo was a stylized crown. Royce was a mass-market brand, emphasizing styling and value as much as performance, but did offer fully-jeweled movements.

The brand added automatic movements in 1960 and this, along with waterproof cases, became their key selling point in the 1960s. By 1965 the firm was offering dive watches, and in 1967 added a novel twin-movement side-by-side travel watch. The company also produced a day-date model strongly resembling the famous Rolex offering. The brand moved to a winged "R" logo this decade as well.

By 1970, Royce had entered the coin watch craze with a "ten dollar watch." Another unique offering was the Royce Amphibian, a waterproof sports watch with interchangeable rotating bezels. Royce added the "Mexico" line of watches with a colorful synthetic case for 1973. In 1975 Royce expanded their sports chronograph line with the new Valjoux 7750 automatic movement.

The Royce brand fell out of favor and was discontinued in the 1980s.