Annemasse is a small town in Haute-Savoie on the border with Switzerland, so close to Genèva that it has become almost one of its suburbs. Here, in the '20s of the last century, a certain A. Perret (who seems to have been mayor of the city) founded the Huma for the production of decent quality watches mainly for women. He then expanded the production using third-party movements whose number was sometimes marked on the dial A couple of examples A nice set of shape watches The watches, given the proximity, were produced in Switzerland, so that even the company name was changed to Huma Genève. Some vintage advertisements From the 20s 1931 1932 1932 1948 1950 A poster from the 60s A sort of "minor" brand of "low value", of those that I like a lot Stainless steel case A nice dial Movement Revue cal. 54 An interesting size, 23x39mm I like it
Looks so cool. Forgive the nerd in me but my very first fantasy book was "The Legend of Huma" Love the name ever since.
Nice post, but honestly, I was hoping the U in Huma was a misprint and I was finally going to learn some information on my Hema watch. Good info though. Hint....hint on Hema for the future. ;-) McK
Do you know the mikrolisk website? That's a start: http://www.mikrolisk.de/show.php?site=280&suchwort=Hema&searchWhere=all
Yes, that is about all the info that I can find, but thank you. I was hoping for a little more history and insight. What people thought of the quality and etc. McK
Most probably, it is just a brand name. Most brands were just "integrators", sourcing dials, handsets, cases and movements. A registered name, maybe a small warehouse and some small hands putting it all together. Even high end manufactures did the same : case? made by EPSA, Borgel, ... Dial? Singer, ... Movement? Lemania, A. Schild, ... (may be a special order, custom modifications, ...) Hands, crown, etc... sourced from specialized manufacturers. Mido, Dugena could be good middle-tier examples. It can be hard to know exactly who did what and where exactly in the swiss watchmaking industry.
I will cease and desist........and just for the record, I have, a few months ago. Sorry for the intrusion. And no, I am not all butt hurt or being sarcastic. McK P.S. Just checked and that isn't true, it was for a different off brand, Felicitas. My bad. It was just in some posts back and forth with @MRC, who owns a Hema, on WRUW thread and then PM's with him.
Thank you so much for the resourceful thread. I'm based in Vietnam and my grandfather used to serve in the colonial French administration. He passed away 9 years ago and left to me a rusted Huma watch as in photos. Not until I come across this post have I been able to find out any information about Huma except one vintage ads (also included here and identified as from 1948). The case looks chrome plated and heavily deteriorated. Caseback however is stainless steel. The movement looks clean and crisp (well, given its age) and still keeps time but servicing may well be needed. I'm considering a stainless steel replacement case for it; what do you guys think? By the way, my next quest would be to find out the exact location of "50 Rue Pellerin, Saigon" where Huma watches used to be exclusively distributed, thanks to the 1960s' ads you provided.
I found a map of depicting Saigon during the French colony on this website: https://saigoneer.com/old-saigon/ol...-behind-saigon’s-french-colonial-street-names. According to their information of some then-vs-now street names. Rue Pellerin back then must be Pasteur Street nowadays (the yellow marking on the map). The allocation of building blocks and streets of the very city centre as such has remained pretty much the same even over hundreds of years. However, it might require more than mere internet-based research to find out where exactly the address "50 Rue Pellerin" is now.
I guess Westclox, Huma, and other hundreds of minor watch manufacturers back then sourced components at a few major specialised producers with narrow selection of variations (in this case, for dial and caseback designs). If your Westclox mearsures at 30mm for diameter without crown, and requires 16mm strap, then my theory seemingly holds true