Let's Talk About Titoni!

Titoni - a brand within Felca which was formed by Fritz Schluep in Grenchen, Switzerland in 1919 as Felca AG. Fritz was focused early on in developing markets outside of Switzerland and fairly early on had distribution networks in Germany, the US, and in Japan. Felca was equally focused on watches for men and women and produced a large number of fashion watches throughout the 1930s/40s. During WWII, Felca was awarded a contract to produce 30,000 watches for the US Army. It was in 1950 that the name "Titoni" came into use by Felca as a result of Bruno Schluep, Fritz's son, developing a business partnership with a businessman in Singapore. The watches would be aimed at the Southeast Asia market and using the Titoni brand name to signify a more expensive line, they would also include the logo of the "meihua" or "plum blossom". With the success of the Titoni brand, the name of the company was changed to Felca & Titoni Uhren AG in the 1960s with Bruno Schluep now running the company since Fritz's death in 1959. Felca watches were primarily sold in Europe and Titoni in Southeast Asia. In the early 1970s, Titoni launched its most successful models the "Race King", a chronograph, and the "Space Star", a sport watch. (Interesting side note - the "Race King" chronograph can also be found in the exact same design with the Felca brand on the dial - very rare in very good condition) Felca/Titoni was hit hard by the quartz crisis of the 1970s and with the death of Bruno in 1981, his son Daniel Schluep took the reigns. Daniel steered the company through the crisis and today Titoni remains an independent Swiss brand with a 90+ year history of independent Swiss watchmaking with Daniel still managing the firm as CEO and owner.

An excellent history of the brand can be found at this link: https://www.ethoswatches.com/the-watch-guide/titoni-the-brand-story-2/

Here are some vintage examples from my collection:
 

Titoni Race King (1971) ref. 3000RK Movement: Manual Valjoux 7734 Case size: 39mm NOS - all original including original signed bracelet

Titoni Race King (1971) ref. 3000RK Movement: Manual Valjoux 7734 Case size: 39mm NOS - all original except for replacement strap

Titoni Race King (1971) ref. 3000RK Movement: Manual Valjoux 7734 Case size: 39mm NOS - all original except for replacement strap 
 

Titoni Cosmo 88 (1970s) ref. A9265 Movement: Automatic ETA 2789 Case size: 43mm NOS - all original except for replacement strap 

Titoni Space Star 939 (1970s) ref. A9897 Movement: Automatic ETA 2790-1 Case size: 38mm NOS - all original except for replacement strap 

Titoni Space Star Aerospace 1199 (1970s) ref. A9931 Movement: Automatic ETA 2789 Case size: 35mm Condition: NOS - all original including original integrated signed bracelet

Titoni Airmaster Rotomatic 25-J (1970s) ref. A8433 Movement: Automatic ETA 2452 Case size: 35mm Condition: This could be a redial - dial surface is a little suspect and it did come from India - so...