Company profile:
Chronométrie Ferdinand Berthoud is a new brand owned by Chopard, whose Co-President Karl-Friedrich Scheufele acquired the right to use the name in 2006. Though part of Chopard, the new brand has an independent, dedicated team, and the watches will be distributed internationally through independent points of sale.
Ferdinand Berthoud, clockmaker and scientist
Ferdinand Berthoud was born in 1727 in Val-de-Travers, now part of the Swiss canton of Neuchâtel, and he became a clockmaker and Master Horologist in Paris in 1753. One of his early pieces was described as “a longcase equation clock with concentric seconds marking the months and days of the month, leap years, and which runs for 13 months without being wound.” He went on to build marine chronometers, essential instruments for navigation in the age of exploration. His work gradually developed more into pure research than practical watchmaking: he wrote material for Diderot’s Encyclopédie méthodique, published a two-volume treatise on watchmaking, and in 1764 he was elected to the Royal Society in London by virtue of his specialist writings. In 1770 he became Horologist-mechanic to the King of France and the Navy, and received a commission for 20 marine chronometers. His work Histoire de la mesure du temps par les horloges, published in 1802, was his swan song: he died in 1807, and his work was continued by two nephews into the late 19th century. Original timepieces by Berthoud are conserved at the Musée des arts et métiers, an industrial design museum at 60 Rue Réaumur, Paris, and the Marine Clock M.M. No. 6 dated 1777 at the L.U.CEUM museum in Fleurier, also part of the Chopard Group.
Location:
Chronométrie Ferdinand Berthoud SA
Rue des Moulins 20, Case postale 128
CH 2114 Fleurier, Val-de-Travers (NE), Switzerland
http://www.ferdinandberthoud.ch
New watches:
Ferdinand Berthoud FB1 Chronometer
