Eterna

Eterna traces its origins to a movement-blank workshop opened in Grenchen on 7 November 1856 by Josef Girard and Urs Schild; the Eterna name was adopted for the company's own watches at the start of the twentieth century. Its movement-making arm was separated in 1932 as ETA, later the principal movement supplier of the Swatch Group. In 1948 Eterna introduced the Eterna-Matic, an automatic calibre whose rotor ran on five miniature ball bearings, a detail commemorated in the brand's five-dot emblem. The KonTiki, launched in 1958 and named after Thor Heyerdahl's 1947 raft expedition, on which Eterna watches were worn, remains its most recognisable line.

After several changes of ownership from the 1980s, Eterna produced watches for Porsche Design from 1998 to 2014 and developed its own modular calibre family, the 39 series, in the 2010s. Since 2011 it has belonged to the Hong Kong-listed group now called Citychamp Watch & Jewellery, and it remains based in Grenchen.