Mondaine
- Founded
- 1951
- Based in
- Solothurn, Switzerland
- In our catalog
- 3 watches from $415 to $940
If you've been to a Swiss train station, you know the Mondaine watch already. It's a copy of the station clock: a white face, black bars instead of numbers and a red seconds hand shaped like a railway signal paddle. It's one of the most recognizable watch faces in the world.
History
Erwin Bernheim founded Mondaine in 1951, and it is still run by the Bernheim family. The station clock was designed in 1944 by Hans Hilfiker, an engineer for the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB). In 1986 Mondaine licensed the design to make the official Swiss Railways watch.
The clocks have an unusual quirk: the second hand goes around in about 58 seconds, then pauses at 12 for a moment while the clock receives a signal from the master clock, and the minute hand jumps forward. Mondaine's stop2go watch reproduces this. In 2012 Apple used the design in an iPad clock app without permission and later paid for a license.
Signature models
- Classic 40 Blue: The station clock in a simple quartz watch, here with a blue dial.
- Evo2 Automatic 40: An automatic version with a slimmer, more modern case.
- stop2go 41: Reproduces the station clock's pause at 12 o'clock.
What it's known for
Mondaine watches are simple and clear, and they look the same as the clocks on the platforms in Zurich and Geneva. Most use Swiss quartz movements, and the automatic versions are a small step up.
Price and positioning
Mondaine watches cost from about $200 for quartz to $900 for automatics. Swatch is cheaper and more playful, Junghans more refined. If you want the one watch face everyone in Switzerland would recognize, there's only one place to get it.
Mondaine watches in our library
- Mondaine Classic 40 Blue ($415)
- Mondaine stop2go 41 ($880)
- Mondaine Evo2 Automatic 40 ($940)