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Lanco: Four Thousand Watches a Day: The Rise and Fall of the Langendorf Watch Company, 1873-1973
Paperback
Series: The Forgotten Horology, Book 15
Crafts GeneralConsumer ReferenceGeneral Antiques & Collectibles
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Publisher: Independently Published
Pages: 138
Weight: 0.43
Height: 0.30 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Most of what you have read about Lanco was copied from the same unsourced paragraph.
For a period in the 1880s, and again in the 1960s, one of Switzerland's largest watch factories stood in a village that had no watchmakers in it at all. Langendorf made its own screws, built its own machines, housed its own workforce, and at its peak produced four thousand watches a day. The factory closed in 1973, exactly one century after a former chicory works was converted to make watch movements. A supermarket stands on the site today.
Lanco: Four Thousand Watches a Day is the definitive history and collector's reference to the Langendorf Watch Company, from its industrial beginnings to its disappearance in the quartz era.
This is not a conventional brand history. It reconstructs the company through contemporary advertising, Swiss commercial records, horological journals, movement archives, and specialist collecting literature - separating documented history from the stories that accumulated around the brand over decades.
The book follows Langendorf from its first ébauches and early export names through its industrial expansion, the Kottmann family, the factory at its peak, Roskopf production, the post-war Lanco range, the Lanco-Fon alarm, Lanco-Matic automatics, the years under SSIH, and the final transformation of the company before production ended.
The watches are examined in detail, including the Mod. 11 and Mod. 11 De Luxe, Lanco Sport, Microtecnic, Flying Saucer, Barracuda, Seaborn, military and trench watches, and the distinctive watches of the 1970s.
For collectors, the final sections turn the history into a practical reference: how to date a Lanco, read its dial and case, identify movements, distinguish genuine evidence from seller claims, evaluate condition and plating, understand the market, and buy intelligently.
Inside:
- 48 chapters across 6 parts
- The documented Langendorf caliber reference
- The Lanco-Fon single-crown alarm explained
- Lanco-Matic and automatic movements
- Model-by-model coverage of the major Lanco watches
- Barracuda and Seaborn identification points
- Military and trench watches
- A 20-point inspection protocol
- 16 original technical figures
- 20 reference tables
- A chronology from 1844-2015
- Glossary and index
- A detailed guide to the sources behind the history
Written for the collector about to bid, the watchmaker handed an unidentified vintage caliber, and anyone who wants to understand what Langendorf actually built, Lanco: Four Thousand Watches a Day tells the story of a remarkable Swiss industrial company - its machines, movements, people, watches, ambitions, and eventual disappearance.
A serious reference for anyone who wants to look beyond the dial and understand the factory behind the name.
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