We all know about Jaquet Droz as per today. A premium brand of the Swatch Group, with products of this kind :



On their website, they feature the history of the brand, referring to Pierre Jaquet Droz and his personal story as a watchmaker back in the 18th cerntury. The history then makes a fast forward from 1790 up to 2000 when Jaquet Droz is acquired by Swatch Group. But what happened in the meantime?

There is very little information available on Internet about the brand in the sixties or seventies for example. However, there are a lot of watches of a rather familiar design featuring Jaquet Droz on the dial. Let's see some examples gathered from the wild web :



Your eye will reckon well known designs from other brands, even models that became iconic in the meantime. Back in 2010, @Robert-Jan was writing about those private labelled watches with iconic designs and good quality movements that appeared time to time for sale, at very good prices. Back in 2011, Monochrome Watches were writing a short update on this topic, but the there's not much more information available from bloggers and such.

In my research I found this old Ad from a french retailer which sheds some light on what the brand was back then :



The most interesting information is (as usual) at the bottom of that page, very small font that you can barely read. Jaquet Droz appears as a trademark and exclusive property of Coopérative de Fabricants Suisses d’Horlogerie in Bienne, Switzerland. What the heck was that cooperative?

On April 4, 1960, some 70 watchmaking manufacturers came together to create a cooperative with the aim of both safeguarding the individuality of the member companies and providing everyone with the means to maintain and increase its competitive capacity. If at the outset the emphasis was placed on purchases (ebauches, assortments, balance wheels and hairsprings), this action was quickly supplemented by centers for control of ebauches and supplies, production and distribution. In 1970, the cooperative was transformed into a public limited company.



Back to Jaquet Droz, on their arrow-style logo it is written "150 fabricants = 1 marque" which literally means 150 manufacturers = 1 brand.

My current state of assumptions is that Jaquet Droz was for several decades a private label owned by the cooperative and used to retail watches from other brands labelled Jaquet Droz, through different channels. The variety of observed watches is quite important but it looks to be small batches as only a very few pieces of each watch model labelled Jaquet Droz did resurface so far.

If anybody here has been researching on this topic and wouldn't mind to add his findings, I'd be happy to learn more. Or maybe we even have some vintage Jaquet Droz labelled beauties in the family?

 

I think I have one, will have a look later.

On a tangent, in the 1960s or so, the Royal Australian Navy issued a low number of diver watches with the name "Droz", are these connected to Jaquet Droz at all?

 

Watches branded DROZ (Mastervoice, Timelord, Waterlord) were made by Droz & Co. in Tavannes, Switzerland. Absolutely not related to Jaquet Droz.

 

Here's my project JD.
It needs some work but I'm sure it'll come up nicely.

Dial.



Caseback





I think the case is made by Jenny, maybe as a result of Jenny being a member of the cooperative?

 

And here is my JD Diver.
A nice simple watch, which is the way I like my vintage watches.



Dial shot.



And the caseback, rather generic "Swiss Diver" style.

 

Looks like a brother from the same mother

 

There's a thread here that confirms your findings:
https://omegaforums.net/threads/what-fresh-hell-space-compax-edition-jacquet-droz-diver-thing.52230/




It seems the original Jaquet Droz family built doll automata between 1768 and 1774, all based on clockworks:

https://www.timeandwatches.com/p/our-visit-to-ateliers-jaquet-droz.html

 

Really cool to see some old JD watches. The current JD, in my opinion, is a pure marketing product aimed at the Chinese market. All the obsession with the number "8" is really riding on the Chinese being obsessed with anything "8" since it is pronounced similarly as "fa" meaning wealth, rich, fortune... you get the point. The two circles on the dials (creating a subtle "8") and everything is limited runs in 28, 38, 68 pcs.

I've never seen a JD outside of Asia but have seen ADs in both Hong Kong and Macau. Especially at the casinos...

 

Interesting take, but I think calling it a "pure marketing product" may be a little too harsh. Regardless of how and to whom they are marketed, the watches themselves are of very high quality all around, in particular the dials. They are not exclusive to Asia at all...I've handled several at an AD in Toronto for example. They are very nice, but are large (43 mm dress watches) and also wear even larger due to the thin bezels and lots of dial area.

There are many current brands that are a rehashing and upgrading of an old brand that wasn't particularly high end, so JD is not unique from that perspective. Blancpain is a good example of this - now known as a higher end maker, but the watches and movements were rather pedestrian back in the day. Another example lower down the price range is Oris - known mostly for pin-lever movements back in the day, the modern brand using ETA/Sellta, and now even have an "in-house" movement. The current Ball watches is just someone buying up the name and pumping out mediocre watches.

So as "pure marketing products" go, I think JD's are very well made and on the nicer end of the rehashed brands.

Cheers, Al

 

If you can take a detailed and sharp pic of the movement, it may help shed a little more light on what went into it.

 

The vintage super compressor diver is one of my grail watches from JD.

 

i have just purchased this watch, i spotted it in a jewellers, for sale some years ago, every time i am in that part of town, id look at it through window,
i took the plunge and bought this time piece but i can not find any info of images of this watch, the seller did say this was a rare watch, i found a watch similar that i believe may share the same parts, face, crown, crystal, its a Dugena with depth gauge

if anyone could advise me on this piece, it needs a good service, bezel is stuck, but its keeping good time, is it worth renovating, ie face and polishing, the Plexiglas has a couple of nicks, on sides, i am guessing because of the depth gauge mech, this will be impossible to replace, maybe clear epoxy and a polish back ?

any help i would be grateful, i think it is a handsome watch and very different, any ideas on strap too

thanks

Alex

Ale

 

Hi, I wonder if anyone can shed any light on this watch. It belonged to my late Father and he would have bought it around 1970 and wore it while sailing. I have searched the Internet but cannot find an image of this watch anywhere.

 

So @kov, JD began as a cooperative to optimize buying power, supply chain and development. It then appears to have become a way to expand channels of sales (Private Label) , possibly to sell off excess components, discontinued models etc without diluting brand equity, price points etc. eventually it became a brand unto itself. Do I have it about right? Very interesting and not unheard of in other highly competitive industries.

 

@Larry S yes, that’s the information I found so far

I am still trying to gauge the attractiveness of those private label watches. Looks like guys who have them think they have the rarest version of them all and try to ask more than the actual model from the real brand.

 

I did quite a lot of research on the “in between” Jaquet-Droz of the 1960s and 1970s recently and posted my thoughts on my blog. You’ve got the story pretty much correct here though of course there’s a lot more to say. 2,000 different models and 15% of the export market is pretty impressive but more so is that they appeared and were gone in just 20 years!

 

I dont think it is as simple as that .
I see often droz with Jaquet droz parts and vice versa.
The 42 mm espa supercompressor share many parts for example.

 

I had this JD a few years ago. Very nice yachting watch and I have never seen others.