Minerva was one of the smaller chronograph manufactures, in my estimation about the same league as Angelus. They made their own movements for a long while, the cal. 13-20 probably being the best known, but by the time Reiner's superb example was made (a ref VD 712?), were using Vajoux ebauches. To judge from their catalogs, they made most of their money in these later years from stopwatches and timers although they continued to offer a line of wristwatch chronographs. Here is my decimal-demarcated example. I also have a triple calendar I picked up from the original owner who received it as a high school graduation present.



Minerva was recently bought by Montblanc as reconstituted as their in-house movement manufacture, although I'm not sure if the Minerva that was bought was a zombie-brand resurrection of the original, or in fact the same company continuously operating.

That is a very sketchy outline - would love to have someone who really knows about the subject offer more or correct....

 

I have seen those expensive Minervas. Can you or anyone else sketch out the path of the company from its sale to the Italians to its sale to Montblanc?

This from the interwebs:http://www.vfcapital.com/Minerva/heritage.htm

"Minerva Watches began their history in 1858 in Villeret, Switzerland when it was founded by Charles-Yvan Robert and Hyppolite Robert. In 1878, Charles and Georges Robert followed in the footsteps of the founding generation. The managing triumvirate was completed in 1885 when Yvan Robert joined the partnership. The characteristic V-shaped trademark with an arrow splitting the letters R, F and V, stood for Robert Freres Villeret. The company name changed several times, becoming Fabrique Robert Freres in 1898, then Fabrique des Faverges in 1902, Fabrique Minerva in 1923 and eventually in 1929 it became Minerva SA.

In 1902 Minerva became a "manufacture" of watches designing and manufacturing the most critical watch parts, such as the movement, in their own engineering workshops. The earliest Minerva wristwatch was manufactured in 1909, but Minerva's greatest success came in 1923 with the introduction the No. 20, a caliber which was a chronograph with a column-wheel mechanism, a Breguet balance-spring and 17 jewels. With the launch of this watch, the company earned its reputation as a manufacturer of complicated movements of exceptional quality. In 1936, Minerva was responsible for time-keeping in the 1936 Winter Olympics. In the years after WWII, Minerva developed a full range of mechanical movements, complemented by automatic movements made by Ebauches.

Minerva, up until 2000 when it was purchased by an Italian company, was led by the Frey family employing as few as 6 full-time employees and producing about 1,000 wristwatches a year (and considerably more stopwatches). Minerva was one of very few companies to produce their own movements and one of even fewer who had done so continuously for close to a hundred years. Andre Frey, physicist and clock technician was an engineer before he came to Minerva in 1940, later taking over the company in 1960. Andre Frey designed several beautiful and highly technical movements including the movement used in the watch model Pythagore which is movement no. 48 and the Venus caliber 175 used in the Heritage (see below)."