Is Chopard co-president Karl-Friedrich Scheufele the best-kept secret of the industry?

"Monsieur Chopard was very happy because his two sons were not interested in taking over the business and it was really not producing too many new watches He was making a few wristwatches with very nice movements and servicing pocket watches that were made by his ancestors.By contrast, the firm owned by Scheufele's family was much more significant."My great-grandfather founded a watch company in Pforzheim, Germany, in 1904," Karl-Friedrich says Advertisement Karl-Friedrich's reminiscence gives a fascinating snapshot of the European watch industry in the mid-20th century, when businesses were nowhere near as specialised or integrated as they are today and when a company in Pforzheim could be a brand importing Swiss movements and assembling its own watches and an industrial manufacturer subcontracting to the Swiss trade, as well as an agent for Swiss brands in a number of territories.

As well as wanting to make watches there, Scheufele Sr wanted to make his family Swiss too and today they are the Swiss Family Scheufele In line with the tastes of the time, it was launched as a man's watch in 1976, but today Happy Diamonds is one big happy family, including some of the best known women's watches on the market Although younger than the generation of mavericks who bet heavily on the future of mechanical watches - Philippe Stern at Patek Philippe, Jean Claude Biver of Blancpain - Karl-Friedrich was, in his quiet, understated way, very much in the vanguard of mechanical revanchism.

For most people it was enough that their watch had a mechanical movement of any sort Tonneau-shaped cases are what marketing people call "segmenting" watches, in other words they are not the easiest to sell, which is why most tonneau watches use a round calibre and fill in the spandrel-like spaces in the corners. . Source