The original Swatch

The first collection of twelve Swatch models was shown in Zurich on 1 March 1983; Europa Star records that Ernst Thomke, the head of ETA, introduced it at a press conference.^1, 6, 7

It was a quartz watch with hands in a case moulded from plastic: the Centre Pompidou records its model of 1983 as injection-moulded ABS with a strap of flexible PVC.¹⁰

The Swatch Group says it was made from just 51 components and assembled on automated production lines around a Swiss Made movement. The European Patent Office compares the 51 with 91 in a standard watch; swissinfo puts the earlier figure at 100.^2, 5, 7

The case was part of the movement. In the patent Jacques Müller and Elmar Mock filed in Switzerland on 26 February and 6 March 1981, the motor’s stator carries the rotor, hand spindles and gear train, the circuit is heat-sealed to the plastic case bottom, and the cell sits in a chamber in the case bottom.³

Later patents closed it up: one with a Swiss priority of 12 August 1982 seals the crystal to the plastic case by ultrasonic welding, and one of June 1982, by Mock and Alphonse Bron, hinges the strap to lugs moulded in one piece with the case.^4, 11

Europa Star writes that Mock, working on plastic insulators, saw that injection moulding could make a watch case, that he and Müller drew the first sketch, and that Thomke, head of ETA from 1978, saw what it meant for mass production.^6, 12

The European Patent Office credits Mock with bringing ultrasonic welding into watchmaking, for parts inside the case and for the crystal; Watchonista, reporting the citation of the Gaïa Prize, adds that the design set out to avoid repairs, which made the watch cheaper to make.^5, 12

swissinfo reports that the design drew on prototypes of fully integrated watches developed inside ASUAG since 1978, and that a low-cost, high-tech watch was what Nicolas Hayek recommended to ASUAG and SSIH in 1983.⁷

The result was a Swiss watch at a mass-market price: twelve models at 39 to 50 francs, by swissinfo’s account, at a time when cheap quartz watches from Japan and Hong Kong had taken the market from the Swiss.^7, 13

Europa Star records that ETA registered the Swatch name in July 1982, planned a test launch in Texas that autumn, and sold about 400,000 in the first half-year in Switzerland, Britain and the United States.⁶

swissinfo counts a million sold within twelve months and some 3.5 million by the end of 1984; the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland counts 10 million by 1985.^7, 8

It was sold as a fashion accessory, with new models every six months, swissinfo reports, and Europa Star credits Franz Sprecher with the idea of selling it as a “second watch”. Mondaine’s M-Watch and Fortis’s ID-Watch followed it in plastic in 1983, Europa Star notes.^6, 7

The Centre Pompidou in Paris holds a set of six Swatch prototypes of 1981–82 and a model of 1983, all given by Swatch in 1992; the Swatch Group says the Museum of Modern Art in New York holds a GB100 of 1983.^{10, 14, 15}

Mock and Müller received the Gaïa Prize of the Musée international d’horlogerie in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 2010 as the inventors named in three Swatch patents, and the European Patent Office named Mock a finalist for its European Inventor Award in 2017.^5, 12