Beta-21, Utopian Collector’s Item
Twenty competing companies joined forces overnight back in 1969 to create Beta-21, the first Swiss-made quartz watch
Imagine twenty of the best Swiss manufacturers coming together to create a watch. This is not a utopian fantasy; it actually happened in 1969 when Rolex, Patek Philippe and 18 other companies, as Bucherer, Bulova, Favre-Leuba, Longines, Piaget, Zenith, as well as Omega, formed an alliance to take on the Japanese who had come to market with the first quartz watch – the Seiko-Quartz Astron 35SQ. The Swiss launched the high-tech hub for Swiss manufacturing known as CEH, Centre Electronique Horloger, in Neuchâtel. It produced 6,000 quartz watches including the Omega Electroquartz, which came in five versions, in steel and 18-carat gold. The model stood out for its “pupitre” case (the French word for writing desk), which got the nickname due to the fact that it was wider on top and smaller on bottom. The “operation Beta-21” included also another luxury brand, Jaeger-LeCoultre, and produced the Masterquartz model. Created in 1971 as a limited edition, it came in 18-carat gold. While this most certainly wasn’t the most important model of the era for the company founded in Le Sentier in 1833, the Masterquartz did go down in history as the first quartz wristwatch. Noblesse oblige!
