Louis-Ulysse Chopard first set up a small factory in Sonvilier, in the Swiss Jura, specializing in pocket watches and chronometers in 1860.
His son continued with his tradition and branched out into jewelry business. Their success and fame grew and in 1920 they moved to the urban center of horological world – Geneva.
However, 100 years later, his two great grandsons were not interested in the business and did not want to enter the trade at all. Then in 1963, Karl Scheufele (the third generation of a family jeweler from Germany) found synergy in taking over Chopard since they have always been using Swiss movements in their watches and are looking to acquire a Swiss watch maker.
Their production of Chopard watches are made in two different areas. Factory in Pforzheim is to produce the cases since it specializes in jewelry production there. Then the Geneva factory functions as building and assembling the watches.
Their flagship watch was the “Happy Diamond" created in 1976. It has seven diamonds freely spinning and sliding within the dial. It is available in 18-karat gold cases embellished in a variety of styles with diamond and sapphires. It runs on a quartz movement.
In 1988, the company partnered with Mille Miglia vintage car race that was held in Italy every year. They launched many Mille Miglia watches that represented the company’s involvement in sports. In 2003, the Mille Miglia mens watches come in different colors on the dials reflecting the vibrant colors of the vintage cars during the race.
These colors actually represent the color of each country: red for Italy, dark green for England, blue for France, yellow for Belgium, and white or light gray for England.
The Mille Miglia watches are COSC-certified chronometer chronographs made of titanium with only a limited 1000 pieces produced for each color. They come in rubber straps that are made from Dunlop tire threads. It contains 37 jewels with a self-winding movement as well as a 40 hours power reserve. Other Mille Miglia collections are:
Some of the important collection of mens watches from Chopard would be L.U.C Quattro and L.U.C Tonneau . Below are some of the collections:
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