I love history. It’s one of the angles that has allowed me to approach and appreciate the world of horology. The romance of old things still charms me, and every interaction feels memorable and intentional. IWC’s heritage has had its ups and downs, each success and setback adding to the brand’s personality. The International Watch Company was founded in 1868 by the American watchmaker Florentine Ariosto Jones, who believed Swiss watchmaking could be elevated by American industrial techniques. While most Swiss watchmakers were based in the French-speaking Jura Mountains, Jones chose Schaffhausen, in German-speaking Switzerland, for its access to hydropower from the Rhine.
For this story we travel to Schaffhausen, where IWC today employs people from more than 50 nationalities—very much an International Watch Company. Far from the bustle of western Switzerland’s watchmaking capitals, IWC’s museum holds a different kind of energy. Its curator, David Seyffer, speaks about the brand as an engineering house first and foremost, where design serves function and even high complications are built to be worn. In this conversation, he traces the transatlantic founding vision of F. A. Jones, the market‑driven milestones that shaped icons from the Portugieser to the Pilot’s Watch and Ingenieur, and a revelatory paper trail that reframes the timeline behind the iconic 1976 Ingenieur SL. Along the way, he argues that the recent turn toward heritage was led not by marketers but by collectors, and that Schaffhausen’s slight remove cultivates focus, continuity and long tenures. What emerges is a portrait of a brand whose past is not a museum piece, it’s a working brief.
TC: In your view, what defines the personality of IWC and what makes it stand apart from other watchmaking houses?
DS: For IWC, design and making are inseparable. We think about watches from the inside and the outside: how they are engineered and how they are worn.
“Even our complications are made for daily life : perpetual calendars, chronographs. Go out, wear them, enjoy them.”
Being in Schaffhausen gives us a slightly different outlook to some of the brands in western Switzerland. Our approach is less playful and more engineered. You see this very clearly in the Ingenieur, which is a good example of what the brand stands for.
The Ingenieur Automatic 40 with a green “Grid”-patterned dial: inspired by a bespoke watch worn by Brad Pitt's character Sonny Hayes in F1® The Movie.
There are certain ‘mandatory characteristics’: utility, reliability, precision, that shape the product. You can see this in our pilot’s watches: over the decades the core character remains, but it evolves with meaningful differences.
TC: What role has IWC’s location in Schaffhausen played in shaping its identity and watchmaking philosophy?
DS: Our location matters. Being a little apart from the mainstream of western Switzerland lets us focus on precision and quality, while staying connected to the industry. That distance has been helpful.
You also see it in careers: people tend to stay. We have watchmakers who’ve spent 45 years at IWC; those long relationships make us a bit different.
Take Albert Pellaton, for example: born in La Chaux‑de‑Fonds, worked in Biel and Geneva, then joined IWC in 1944 and stayed until retirement. He didn’t go back west; he made Schaffhausen his home. That sense of commitment is part of who we are.
TC: IWC has a long and storied history. Could you walk us through the key chapters of its evolution and how each era shaped the brand we know today?
DS: The founding story is fundamental. Our founder, Florentine Ariosto Jones, came to Schaffhausen with the idea of combining the American system of assembly line production, then among the most advanced in the 19th century, with the skills of Swiss watchmakers. That fusion shaped IWC’s engineering mindset and process discipline; you can still see it in our products today.
What I find compelling is the dialogue between what was happening in watchmaking and how IWC responded, or, at times, how our actions influenced the field. In the beginning we didn’t focus on complications; we focused on precision and quality, and that remains central to IWC’s identity.
In the 1930s, during a difficult market environment, we proactively explored new markets such as Portugal. The result was the first Portugieser. We also developed watches for the Royal Air Force, and later carried those ideas into watches for customers, culminating, for example, in the Ingenieur.
And when you ask why IWC embarked on the journey into complicated watches: look at the 1970s. In a time of crisis, rather than retreat, we dared to do something different, returning to the tradition of mechanical watchmaking and then stepping into haute horlogerie. Those milestones help explain who we are today.
TC: Was there a discovery at the museum that changed how you viewed IWC’s legacy?
DS: A big one came when we dug into IWC’s beginnings. In the 1990s I often read that Florentine Ariosto Jones “failed” and that IWC only became what it is in the 1980s. The primary sources tell a different story.
Jones prepared business plans and went from bank to bank, in the US and in Schaffhausen, with a structured proposal: how the supply chain would work, which parts would be made where, how cases would be produced, the processes, even sales plans and forecasts. The archives document all of this.
"F. A. Jones' vision wasn’t a whimsical dream; it was an innovative plan."
The environment was tough: the financial crisis of 1873 in Europe and rising US import tariffs eroded his margins and the cost advantage of manufacturing in Switzerland. With that context, you see how innovative the whole endeavour was.
TC: Could you share a unique or unexpected artefact from the IWC archives, something that isn’t a watch, and tell us the story behind it?
DS: One of my favourite discoveries came around Watches and Wonders 2023, when we relaunched the Ingenieur.
The new line was strongly inspired by the Ingenieur SL (Ref. 1832) of course. First launched in 1976 and by then, the line had already passed through the early Ingenieur generations. The original Ref. 666 (1954/55) with Pellaton’s automatic and a soft‑iron inner case for anti‑magnetism, and Ref. 866 (1967) with the updated calibre 8541 and a refined case/dial, setting the engineer’s‑watch brief.
In the run‑up we were telling the story we thought we knew: through Madame Genta we had identified an original Gérald Genta sketch, wonderful in itself. At the pre‑show event at London’s Science Museum, journalists asked when the design process began. At the time, we naturally assumed perhaps two or three years before the 1976 Basel fair. That’s how it usually is. Shortly before Geneva, a colleague mentioned that a former executive’s files had surfaced. I went through the folders and found minutes from product meetings! There it was: a document dated 30 August 1969 stating that the project Neue Ingenieur had begun. Initially, IWC worked with an independent designer on a new case, but the result wasn’t satisfactory; internal notes from 1970/71 even state there was no real progress.
Then the tone changes: the team was searching for a new approach. We have the original Genta drawing, the start of prototyping signed by our construction team, and then the 1976 launch. Piecing it together, you can see the whole arc: the idea starts in 1969; after limited progress, the design direction changes; around autumn 1972 we approach Genta; with our supplier and in‑house team the watch takes shape; and the files also include a signed case order authorised by Alexandre Ott (then Marketing Director).
Altogether, the documents revealed a new understanding.
“The Ingenieur SL wasn’t a quick two-year sprint; it began in the late 1960s and culminated in 1976, because we recognised we had to do something new.”
"Our Most Brilliant Failure" - A short film about the Ingenieur SL Ref. 1832.
TC: Is there a particular vintage IWC that remains under‑appreciated or overlooked today?
DS: Tastes in collecting change with time and fashion. From my perspective, I’d like people to look again at pocket watches. The quality of those pieces, going back 150 years to Jones’s pocket watches, and the wonderfully flat movements we saw in the museum, is exceptional. In terms of design and precision, they’re very much in the IWC spirit, yet they often fly under the radar.
I’d also encourage collectors to revisit dress watches from the 1950s and 1960s. The designs are timeless, and although they’re vintage, you can absolutely wear and enjoy them today. If I had to name two areas to explore, it would be pocket watches and mid‑century dress watches.
TC: How has IWC’s approach to design and engineering evolved over the decades, particularly in balancing innovation with heritage?
DS: Before the 1980s, heritage wasn’t the focus. People wanted to do something new. That changed in the 1990s and 2000s as we realised how important heritage is for our customers. Working with Christian Knoop, IWC’s Chief Design Officer, and the design team, the first question is always: what happened in the past? From there we decide what to keep, what should be new, and how the designer interprets those elements.
Earlier chapters, think Porsche Design collaborations or the Ingenieur SL, were radical for IWC, and not particularly heritage‑minded. Today, heritage matters because it gives customers the big picture. The goal is that even if a new IWC looks different from older models, the DNA, the core values, must be present in the design.
The museum team is involved in design as well, which means we participate not just in heritage but in product creation. Christian often asks us to bring in vintage watches for his team to handle, touch and feel the cases, study the polishing, and notice the tiny three‑dimensional nuances you’ll miss in two‑dimensional images.
TC: Was that heritage turn driven by the elevation of watchmaking into luxury after the Quartz Crisis, because luxury storytelling demands historical roots?
DS: It wasn’t driven by marketers or the companies; it came directly from collectors. In the 1980s most people just wanted their watches to run, almost no one went to a service department and said, “keep it original.” Over time, collectors became more sensitive to what had happened before, and that changed expectations. As the luxury world transformed, customers wanted both: heritage (including vintage pieces) and new models. That forced a different approach. The design team began looking more carefully at the past.
TC: How do you see the role of the museum evolving, especially as younger generations engage with watchmaking differently?
DS: A museum is vital, not because I work in one, but because it can be the first point of contact with the brand. When you step inside, you enter IWC’s world and its beginnings. That physical experience still matters, even in a fast, digital age. Looking ahead, we need to be more active in new media, TikTok and broader social platforms, and more modern in how we present watches. But the artefact itself remains central: the feeling of standing in front of an old timepiece with real history.
"Our job is to teach, tell stories that are clear and digestible, and always be truthful."
TC: What advice would you give to someone starting to explore historical IWC pieces?
DS: The museum is a good first point of contact. We also send historical pieces to boutiques worldwide so people can see them face to face. Our website and social channels are useful too, and never hesitate to ask, even at headquarters. I’d love us to publish another book in future; it’s a powerful way to share stories and explain our heritage.
If you want to be sure about a watch, ask the seller, or go through your local IWC retailer/boutique, to request a Certificate of Authenticity. Operationally, the watch is sent to us; we examine it and, if it qualifies, we issue the certificate. You’ll sometimes see my signature on paperwork that accompanies pre‑owned watches. When someone acquires their first IWC, I want them to feel confident, not worrying about a Franken or a marriage. With the certificate, you can be 100 per cent sure.
Across Seyffer’s stories, a simple thread runs through IWC: engineering for real use, informed by history but not trapped by it. The archive doesn’t just store objects; it sharpens the brief, whether that’s the Portugieser’s chronometer logic, the Pilot’s legibility, or the Ingenieur’s utilitarian quest. As younger audiences discover watches online, the museum remains the physical anchor, and research and authentication help new collectors buy with confidence. In Schaffhausen, the past isn’t a place to linger; it’s a set of principles to apply.
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