Carl F. Bucherer

In 1888, Carl Friedrich Bucherer established his first boutique selling watches and jewelry in Lucerne, Switzerland. In 1919, Carl Friedrich Bucherer launched his first ladies’ watch collection in the art deco style. He was one of the first watchmakers to adopt the watch strap, which at the time was still a revolutionary concept. By 1948, the company was focusing on sporty chronographs that prominently displayed the current date.

By 1968, Carl F. Bucherer had manufactured around 15,000 high-precision, certified chronometers, making the company one of the top three Swiss producers of these specialized timepieces. In 1969, the company became part of a Swiss consortium for the development and production of the first quartz movement for wristwatches, the Beta 21.

In 1976, Jörg G. Bucherer, the third generation of the family, took over the company. In 2001, the Carl F. Bucherer brand was repositioned and the company launched the Patravi watch collection. In 2005, the company filed a patent for the monopusher mechanism of the Patravi TravelTec watch, which permits the parallel display of three time zones.

In 2007, Carl F. Bucherer acquired Téchniques Horlogères Appliquées of Sainte-Croix, Switzerland and incorporated it into the company as Carl F. Bucherer Technologies. The acquisition enabled the company to research, develop, and produce its own manufacture movements and modules for additional functions. This led in the following year to the company's launch of the CFB A1000 manufacture movement, which features a weighted geared ring peripherally mounted power source. In 2014, the Manero PowerReserve became the first Carl F. Bucherer model to receive a unique laser signature in order to ensure product authenticity and quality. From that year, all models have been equipped with this technology. In 2018 Bucherer acquired Tourneau LLC.

Production

In order to increase its production capacity, Carl F. Bucherer moved its production workshops from Nidau to a larger production site in Lengnau, Bern in 2002. In 2015, Carl F. Bucherer announced that its manufacturing would be consolidated to a new factory in Lengnau in order to optimize production processes and its value-added chain, as well as to increase the scope of vertical manufacturing.

The company currently sells about 67,000 watches a year (around 67% men, 41% women). The price range varies between CHF 5,000 and CHF 30,000 with some exception over CHF 400,000. The world market is divided between Europe with 67%, Asia also 40% and rest of the world, including US market with 20%.

In-house manufacture movement

The CFB A1000 caliber has the first reliably functioning automatic mechanical watch movement with a peripherally mounted power source. A geared ring and a rotating unbalance mass segment made of tungsten encircles the entire mechanism, rotating on carbon rollers whenever the watch moves. A system of clutch wheels captures power. Discarding a centrally mounted rotor means thinner watches and an ultradense weight swinging around a greater radius means a better chance of achieving a greater power reserve with the same amount of arm movement. The peripheral rotor provides power when turning in either direction and allows for full visual display of the movement. The A1000 movement includes the patented "Dynamic Shock Absorption" (DSA) system for effective shock absorption.

At BaselWorld 2016, Carl F. Bucherer introduced the CFB A2000 manufacture movement. The A2000 retains the A1000 caliber's signature winding mechanism, but is enhanced from a 3 Hz to a 4 Hz beat rate "for increased precision and a newly free-sprung balance for increased resistance to shock-induced timing deviation." The A2000 has the COSC Swiss Chronometer certification to attest to its high-level performance.