Lazarus brands
The quartz crisis and its aftermath caused a number of watch brands to fold, or to be swallowed up by some larger entity. Several of these defunct brands were later resurrected, mostly to slap known European/American brand names on watches produced somewhere in Asia, or at least that's a story I heard a few times.
So I thought it would be interesting to create a list of brands that suffered this fate.
I start this off with Dugena, a Swiss/German entry-level watchbrand which in its olden days still had its distinct brand flavour, but now seems to mostly stick to generic watch types. I am not sure they are the clearest example of that, but the pics show an example of before and after.
Then there is DUFA. Their about/history page on their website looks as phony as my landline. The Bauhaus had never any formal connection with DUFA, so there is a massive historical gap in their brand history.
There are some brands who basically went under and came back via telemarketing, making rather different watches. I am thinking Invicta, I am thinking Constantin Weisz. My QVC-addicted mum gifted me and my dad a Constantin Weisz watch each; it looked like Chinese bling to me (think: Olevs), and I thought that was just another made up brand name, only to discover via ebay that there are vintage watches of this brand that look rather different. So, I suspect another Lazarus story behind this.
Do you know about other brands of this ilk? Also: please correct me if I misinterpreted the background of the brands I mentioned.
UK-based German expat. Likes cheap watches. Not bothered about brands.
Please let this brand die.
I recently purchased a Wolbrook/ Douglas skindiver worldtimer. I was looking for a vintage skindiver when I stumbled on this resurrected brand. I'm happy with their work.
Vintage
Reissue
Please let this brand die.
My mom has a vintage Wittnauer that her grandmother used to wear (this is not hers, but the same model). Cute little piece with a tiny little movement inside. Like less than the size of a dime small. But it was glorious! The brand did not survive the crisis though, please just let its corpse rest peacefully lol.
Smiths (covered in great detail)
Invicta, Gruen, Nivada Grenchen