What Longines is
Plain language, nothing assumed. A reader who knows nothing about watches should finish this and understand why this company matters.
A meadow gave the company its name
Longines' own account begins with Auguste Agassiz, who in 1832 joined a trading office (a comptoir) established in the Swiss Jura town of Saint-Imier, manufacturing watches "in a remote valley... without electricity, running water and no means of communication other than diligence."[Longines] Agassiz's nephew, Ernest Francillon, took the workshop and, in 1867, "transformed his uncle's watchmaking workshop into a new factory," bringing watchmakers "together under the same roof, aided by machines" for the first time.[Longines]
The name is a place, not a person or a word invented for marketing. Longines' own history states plainly: "The factory was built on the 'longs prés' [long meadows: this Codex's gloss, not Longines' own translation] of Saint-Imier: the place that would give LONGINES its name."[Longines] A separate Longines page dates the land purchase precisely ("two adjoining pieces of land in 1866 on the right bank of the River Suze") and gives a second, consistent account of the naming: "The site was known locally as Les Longines and he adopted this name for the factory."[Longines] The company has "been based at Saint-Imier in Switzerland since 1832"[Longines], and its own account says the brand was using the winged hourglass symbol and the Longines tradename "as early as 1867"[Longines], a claim about early use of the mark, distinct from its 1889 registration discussed below.
The mark, in one paragraph
The winged hourglass is the most independently documented fact in this dossier. WIPO (the World Intellectual Property Organization, which runs the international trademark registry) states that "the winged hourglass logo of the Longines watch-making company is the oldest valid trademark in the International Registry at WIPO."[WIPO] This Codex's Legacy page already sets out that finding and the caution around it in full; the full account is not repeated here, only the parts that bear on this brand's own history. See the full account below.
A name seen more often on a scoreboard than a wrist
Many people who could not name a single Longines collection have still seen the brand's name on a screen: the International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI), a body independent of Longines, names it as its "Top Partner"[FEI] and, more specifically, "the Official Timekeeper, Watch and presenting partner of the Furusiyya FEI Nations Cup Jumping series"[FEI] and "Title Partner, Official Timekeeper and Watch of the three FEI World Cup Leagues — Western European, North American and Chinese."[FEI]
"Official Timekeeper of FEI" would overstate this page's own wording
The FEI page names Longines Official Timekeeper of specific series and events: the Nations Cup Jumping series, the three World Cup Leagues, "countless equestrian events"[FEI], but never calls it the Official Timekeeper of FEI or of equestrian sport as a whole, and this page does not either. The same 2016 page also states, forward-looking at the time: "Moreover, Longines will be timing the FEI World Equestrian Games in 2018 and 2022"[FEI], a stated intention as of 2016, not a title confirmed for those Games on the page itself, and this Codex has not separately checked whether either Games in fact used the title "Official Timekeeper" for Longines.
Two things worth knowing before you go looking
Longines is one of sixteen watch brands in a group, and the group discloses almost nothing about it by name. The Swatch Group's own investor releases mention Longines only in passing, grouped with other brands and with no figure of its own attached; see The published figures.
And "oldest trademark" is not the same claim as "oldest watchmaker." Longines was founded in 1832; this Codex's Legacy page lists unresolved claims from Blancpain (1735) and Vacheron Constantin (1755) that are a century older as companies. WIPO's finding is scoped to trademark registrations in the Madrid System, not to when any company itself began. See Commonly confused.
How to read the brand
Structure, collections, certification, manufacturing and price. For a buyer, a student, a collector starting out, or a retailer's new hire.
Who actually owns what
Longines describes itself as "a member of the Swatch Group Ltd, the world's leading manufacturer of horological products."[Longines] This Codex's Omega dossier sets out how that group came to exist: SSIH and ASUAG forced to the brink of insolvency by the quartz crisis in the late 1970s, merged in 1983 to form ASUAG-SSIH, renamed SMH in 1985 and The Swatch Group Ltd in 1998; and Longines was one of the constituent brands on the ASUAG side of that merger, alongside Rado.[Seiko Museum] That history is not repeated in full here; see the Omega dossier and this Codex's History page.
Longines' own site carries no mention of "Swatch Group" anywhere in its consumer-facing footer, navigation or legal pages, and no investor-relations, financial or annual-report link of any kind.[Longines] This matches the pattern this Codex has already found on Tissot's site[Tissot]: the group's brand-facing sites are built for buyers, not for readers of corporate disclosure.
The collections, as Longines itself lists them
Longines' own watches index names collections including Master Collection, Conquest, HydroConquest, Spirit, Elegance, DolceVita, Mini DolceVita, Record, Heritage, Legend Diver, Ultra-Chron, Flagship and several further heritage and elegance lines.[Longines] The Master Collection is the brand's broad, classic-dress range, spanning simple three-hand models to chronographs and moon-phase complications.[Longines] HydroConquest and Spirit are the brand's sport and tool-watch lines; DolceVita and Mini DolceVita are rectangular-cased lines marketed principally to women.[Longines] Legend Diver and Ultra-Chron are heritage reissues of earlier Longines tool watches, and Record is the collection discussed below under certification.[Longines]
Certification: one collection carries it, and the wording is precise
Unlike Rolex's blanket "Superlative Chronometer" claim across its current range, Longines makes a certification claim about a specific collection rather than the brand as a whole. Longines' own Record collection page states, in full: "Their movement is chronometer certified by the COSC."[Longines] COSC (the Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres) is the same independent Swiss testing body already documented on this Codex's Standards page, which states that "only about 15% of Swiss watches exported have this status," attributed on COSC's own page to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry.[COSC]
The Master Collection Chronograph's own page makes no certification claim at all
This page was checked specifically because a reader might assume every mechanical Longines carries the same certification the Record collection advertises. It does not: the Master Collection Chronograph's own product page contains no mention of COSC, METAS, "chronometer" or any other certification term.[Longines] As with Omega's calibre-by-calibre certification picture, a Longines certification claim is a claim about a specific collection and its specific movement, not a blanket claim about the brand.
Where a Longines watch is made, and a figure that does not match this Codex's own reading of the law
Longines states plainly where its watchmaking happens: "At Longines, located in St-Imier, Switzerland, one can witness the designers and watchmakers tirelessly working toward creating Swiss Made watches."[Longines]
Longines' own summary of "Swiss Made" does not match this Codex's own reading of the ordinance
Longines' own blog states the legal test as: "At least 60% of the production costs of a watch taken as a whole must be Swiss-based," and separately that "the movement must contain at least 60% Swiss-made components in value."[Longines] This Codex's own Standards page, reading the ordinance's own text directly, draws a different split: the movement must generate 60% of its own coût de revient in Switzerland, but the finished watch as a whole needs only 50% at least of the value of all constituent parts
, excluding the cost of assembly.[RS 232.119]
So Longines' own "60% for the whole watch" summary states a higher bar than the ordinance actually sets for the whole watch (50%), while understating nothing about the movement (also 60% there, though by a different measure: cost rather than parts value). This is noted rather than corrected, because this page is not the ordinance and does not tell Longines how to describe its own compliance; it is noted because a reader comparing a brand's plain-language summary against the legal text should be able to see exactly where the two diverge, and this is one of those places. Longines' figure is a simplification a consumer-facing blog might reasonably choose; it is not what RS 232.119 itself says.
What a Longines watch costs, from Longines
Unlike Rolex and Omega, which this Codex has found publish no prices on their own consumer sites, Longines' own US site shows a price beside every watch. Within the Record collection alone, reference L2.821.4.11.6 is shown at $2,450.00 and reference L2.820.8.92.2 at $9,400.00: the same collection, the same certification claim, a nearly fourfold spread by case material and complication.[Longines] The Master Collection Chronograph, which carries no certification claim, is shown between $3,500.00 and $4,400.00 across the references checked.[Longines] No currency other than USD was checked, and these are the prices shown on Longines' US site on the date read, not a claim about any other market, and not a claim that this is a global fixed retail price the way Titan's India-mandated MRP is.[Longines]
What this page does not yet tell you
- An independent confirmation of the registered entity from Switzerland's own federal commercial register, Zefix, robots-blocked from here, as it has been for every other Swiss brand in this Codex (see Legal entity).
- Which specific movement calibres, beyond the Record collection's, carry any certification.
- A service-centre locator distinct from the general customer-service contact.
- Historical unit-sales or production-volume figures for any period.
- Whether Longines' Swiss-Made blog post has been updated since 2017, when its own figures are dated.
The record, dated and attributed
Legal entity, chronology, the full trademark account, common misconceptions and the museum.
Legal entity
| Field | As the source states it |
|---|---|
| Registered legal name | Compagnie des Montres Longines, Francillon S.A.[Moneyhouse] |
| Company's own English rendering | Longines Watch Co. Francillon Ltd.[Longines] |
| Registered address | Les Longines 8, 2610 St-Imier, Canton of Bern, Switzerland[Moneyhouse] |
| UID (federal business identifier) | CHE-101.311.360[Moneyhouse] |
| Commercial-register number shown | CH-073.3.000.822-5[Moneyhouse] |
| Legal form | "Company limited by shares (AG)", as the aggregator's own page words it[Moneyhouse] |
| Founded | 1832, as a trading office in Saint-Imier[Longines] |
| Group | Member of The Swatch Group Ltd[Longines] |
A registry date that almost certainly is not a founding date, and could not be independently confirmed
The aggregator entry above carries two separate fields, labelled "Founding Date" and "Entry in Commercial Register", and both give 1 January 1983[Moneyhouse], which is the same year the SSIH–ASUAG merger that would eventually create The Swatch Group took place. This page does not assert that the two are connected: a 1 January date is also a common placeholder in digitised Swiss registry entries for an entity whose original paper filing predates the registry's own move to electronic filing, and this Codex has no way to distinguish the two explanations from what is published. What is certain is that 1 January 1983 is not when Longines was founded: that is 1832, on the company's own, independently uncontested account.[Longines] An attempt to query Switzerland's own federal register, Zefix, directly was blocked at the robots.txt stage, matching this Codex's prior experience with every other Swiss brand checked.[Zefix] This is why the table above is sourced to an independent aggregator rather than to the federal registry itself, and it remains an outstanding item; see What this page does not yet tell you.
The winged hourglass, in full
WIPO's own account gives the sequence: the mark was "originally registered in Switzerland in 1889" and "filed under the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks in 1893."[WIPO] The detail WIPO adds to make the claim vivid: "The Longines trademark was the fourteenth application filed in the Registry, but the preceding thirteen marks have lapsed in the intervening years."[WIPO] This Codex's Legacy page carries the full treatment of this claim, including two cautions this dossier inherits rather than re-derives: no international registration number is published for the Longines mark (WIPO's Global Brand Database gives only a database identifier, MAD.0158574[WIPO]), and the number 306231, which circulates online attached to Longines, actually belongs to Suchard, per WIPO's own podcast transcript.[WIPO] This Codex's withheld-claims list has carried "a Longines international registration number" as unresolved since it was first checked; that remains true after this session's own attempt to resolve it, which reached the same registry block described above.
Chronology, as Longines and independent sources date it
| Year | Event | Who dates it |
|---|---|---|
| 1832 | Auguste Agassiz joins a trading office in Saint-Imier | Longines[Longines] |
| 1867 | Ernest Francillon builds a factory on the "longs prés" of Saint-Imier, giving the site, and later the brand, its name | Longines[Longines] |
| 1889 | Winged hourglass mark registered in Switzerland | WIPO[WIPO] |
| 1893 | Mark filed under the Madrid Agreement: the fourteenth application in the Registry, and the only one of the first thirteen still in force | WIPO[WIPO] |
| 1927 | Charles Lindbergh's transatlantic flight, timed by Longines; Longines states he then conceived the Hour Angle Watch's design, with production "entrusted to Longines" | Longines[Longines] |
| 1983 | ASUAG (Longines' then-parent, with Rado) merges with SSIH: the merger this Codex's Omega dossier dates via an independent scholarly source, since neither merging party's successor dates it precisely on its own history page | Historical Dictionary of Switzerland, via the Omega dossier[HLS, via Omega dossier] |
| 1983 (registry) | A Swiss registry aggregator's registration date for the current legal entity, not treated here as a founding date; see the caution above | Moneyhouse[Moneyhouse] |
| 2012 | The Lindbergh Hour Angle Watch reissued in its original 47.5 mm size with a self-winding movement | Longines[Longines] |
Commonly confused
| Common claim | What the sources say |
|---|---|
| Longines is "the oldest watch brand" | WIPO's finding is scoped to trademark registrations in the Madrid System, not company age. Longines was founded in 1832, a century after Blancpain's 1735 and Vacheron Constantin's 1755 claims, both listed on this Codex's Legacy page |
| International registration 306231 is the Longines mark | WIPO's own podcast transcript names 306231 as Suchard's registration, not Longines'. No international registration number is published for Longines here |
| Every Longines watch is COSC-certified | Only the Record collection makes this claim on its own product page; the Master Collection Chronograph's page makes no certification claim at all |
| "Swiss Made" requires 60% Swiss content for the whole watch | Longines' own blog states this; the ordinance itself (RS 232.119, already read for this Codex's Standards page) sets 60% for the movement's own cost, but 50% of parts value, excluding assembly, for the watch as a whole |
Does Longines make for other brands?
Make your own covers movement supply generally; this is only what Longines' and its group's own current pages say.
Longines states nothing on its current official pages, and the silence was checked rather than assumed. Across Longines' own watches, corporate and media-centre pages, nothing states that Longines currently supplies watches, movements or components to any other brand.[Longines] As with Omega, its parent's own description of producing "nearly all of the components necessary to manufacture the watches sold under its 16 watch brands... as well as the entire Swiss watchmaking industry" is a claim about the Group, not a claim that Longines SA itself supplies anyone.[Swatch Group]
This scoped negative covers current pages only, checked on the date shown. It says nothing about whether Longines-branded or Longines-signed watches were sold under other names historically. That is a question this Codex has not researched for this dossier and does not answer here.
The published figures
What Longines' parent reports, which is almost nothing specific to Longines. If the words below are unfamiliar, the money page explains them from the beginning.
Longines publishes no financial figures of its own, matching the pattern this Codex has already documented for Omega and for the Swatch Group's brands generally.[Swatch Group] Its parent, The Swatch Group Ltd, reports in Swiss francs for a financial year ending 31 December. See the Omega dossier for the group-level figures in full; they are not repeated here.
Longines is named twice in the group's disclosures: never with a number attached
The Swatch Group's "Key Figures 2024" release cites "the strongest growth for the Omega, Longines and Tissot brands" in certain markets, with no figure isolating any one of the three.[Swatch Group] Its "Half-Year Report 2025" gives increases of "10% to 30%" for a group of six named brands (Omega, Longines, Rado, Tissot, Hamilton and Swatch) in the USA: a range attached to six brands together, not to Longines alone.[Swatch Group] Applying either figure to Longines alone would produce a number the group has never published, so none is estimated here.
These figures are reported here as The Swatch Group Ltd published them. This Codex does not interpret them, does not say whether they are good or bad, does not compare them with another company's, and publishes no valuation of Longines or of any watch. Currency, unit and period are stated because all three change the meaning of a number.
Contacts & official channels
Organisational channels only, each fetched and confirmed live on the date shown.
Contact details were verified on 29 September 2026 from the sources shown and may have changed. The Codex is not affiliated with any manufacturer and does not endorse any retailer. Always confirm through the brand's official website. No individual's name, personal email or mobile number is published here, ever.
- Official site
- longines.com[Longines]
- Corporate identity
- Compagnie des Montres Longines, Francillon S.A., Les Longines 8, 2610 St-Imier, Switzerland[Moneyhouse]
- Media Center
- mediacenter.longines.com[Longines]
- Customer service
- Reached via the contact links on Longines' official site[Longines]. This Codex never compiles its own dealer or service-centre list.
- India
- Not checked for this dossier; see What this page does not yet tell you.
- Verified on / how
- 29 September 2026: each URL was fetched and confirmed live, then re-checked by an independent reader shown only the address and the quoted text
Sources
Every claim above traces to one of these. Sources fall into two kinds, and the citation chips are coloured to match: independent authorities (WIPO, COSC, the Fédération Internationale Équestre would be if cited here, and the Swiss registry aggregator flagged as such) and the company's own publications, which are Tier 1 for what Longines and The Swatch Group state about themselves and for nothing else. No forum, marketplace, dealer blog or editorial watch site was used as the source of any fact on this page. All read 29 September 2026 unless marked otherwise.
- Tier 1 Longines, Media Center, "The Company": source read 2026-09-29
- Tier 1 Longines, "Auguste Agassiz & Ernest Francillon", Pioneer Spirits magazine: source read 2026-09-29
- Tier 1 WIPO Magazine, "Longines Watch Company: Madrid's Oldest Mark", 30 March 2005: source read 2026-09-26. Independent of the company; already cited on this Codex's Legacy page.
- Tier 1 WIPO, "125 Years of the Madrid System", 14 April 2016: source read 2026-09-26. Publishes the Global Brand Database identifier MAD.0158574; already cited on this Codex's Legacy page.
- Tier 1 Longines, "The Swiss watchmaking heritage of 'Swiss-Made': a better guarantee": source read 2026-09-29. States figures "as of 2017"; not confirmed updated since.
- Tier 1 WIPO, "A History of Trademarks: An In Depth Look at the Madrid Agreement" (podcast transcript): source read 2026-09-26. The source of the Suchard registration number 306231; already cited on this Codex's Legacy page.
- Tier 1 Longines, Record collection (US locale): source read 2026-09-29. Cited for the USD prices in this dossier. The COSC-certification sentence quoted on this page is identical on the international locale, longines.com/watches/watchmaking-tradition/record, which shows the same references in CHF at different amounts (e.g. ref. L2.821.4.11.6: CHF2,150.00 there against $2,450.00 on the US-locale page), a currency and market difference, not a discrepancy in the certification claim.
- Tier 1 Longines, Master Collection Chronograph: source read 2026-09-29
- Tier 1 Longines, watches index page: source read 2026-09-29
- Tier 1 Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres (COSC), official site: source read 2026-09-29. Independent of the company. States the "about 15%" figure, attributed on the page to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry; does not itself name Longines.
- Tier 1 Ordonnance réglant l'utilisation du nom «Suisse» pour les montres du 23 décembre 1971 (État le 1er janvier 2019), RS 232.119: as already read and cited on this Codex's Standards page read 2026-09-28
- Tier 2 Moneyhouse, company profile for Compagnie des Montres Longines, Francillon S.A.: source read 2026-09-29. An independent private aggregator of Swiss commercial-register (Handelsregister) data, cited because Zefix, the federal register itself, is robots-blocked (see src-17). Not an independent registry confirmation in the fullest sense; flagged as an outstanding item.
- Tier 1 Zefix, the Swiss Central Business Names Index: attempted source attempted 2026-09-29. A direct query was refused at the robots.txt stage; cited as evidence of the attempt and its result, not as a working link.
- Tier 1 Longines Media Center, "The Lindbergh Hour Angle Watch", dated 09/10/2012: source read 2026-09-29
- Tier 1 The Seiko Museum Ginza, "The Quartz Crisis and Recovery of Swiss Watches": already cited on this Codex's History and Omega pages for the ASUAG/Longines/Rado grouping read 2026-09-26
- Tier 1 Longines, official website home: source read 2026-09-29. Footer and navigation checked in full for any Swatch Group, investor-relations or financial content; none found.
- Tier 1 Tissot (brand of The Swatch Group Ltd), homepage: already cited on this Codex's money page for the same absence of corporate content read 2026-09-27
- Tier 1 The Swatch Group Ltd, home page: already cited on this Codex's Omega dossier for the "produces nearly all of the components" sentence read 2026-09-28
- Tier 1 The Swatch Group Ltd, Half-Year Report 2025 (results release, company website archive): already cited on this Codex's money page read 2026-09-27
- Tier 1 The Swatch Group Ltd, "Key Figures 2024" (ad hoc announcement), swatchgroup.com: already cited on this Codex's Omega dossier read 2026-09-28
- Tier 1 The Swatch Group Ltd, "Half-Year Report 2025" (ad hoc announcement), swatchgroup.com: already cited on this Codex's Omega dossier read 2026-09-28
- Tier 1 FEI (Fédération Équestre Internationale), "Longines & Equestrian Sport", dated 13 July 2016: source read 2026-09-29. Independent of the company, though published in the FEI's sponsor-stories section. Names Longines Official Timekeeper of specific series and events, not of FEI or of the sport as a whole; the 2018/2022 World Equestrian Games mention is a stated 2016 intention, not a confirmed title on this page.