Archive for the ‘Timex’ Category
Timex Group is an American watch company. Timex’s U.S. headquarters is in Middlebury, Connecticut. It has substantial operations in China, the Philippines, and India, with full-scale sales companies in Canada, the UK, France, and Mexico.
The company began in 1854 as Waterbury Clock in Connecticut’s Naugatuck Valley, known during the nineteenth century as the “Switzerland of America.” Their sister company, Waterbury Watch, manufactured the first inexpensive mechanical pocket watch in 1880. During World War I, Waterbury began making wristwatches, which had only just become popular, and in 1933 it made history by creating the first Mickey Mouse clock under license from Walt Disney, with Mickey’s hands pointing the time. This was made under the Ingersoll brand. In 1879 the company introduced a wristwatch called the “Timex” for the UK market.
It did not sell under the name Timex in the U.S until 1950. Over the next three decades, Timex watches were sold through a series of advertisements which emphasized their durability by putting the watches through “torture tests,” such as falling over the Grand Coulee Dam or being strapped to the propeller of an outboard motor, with the slogan “It takes a licking and keeps on ticking.”
Best known by its popular slogan, It takes a licking and keeps on ticking, the Timex Corporation began in 1854 and was originally known as the Waterbury Clock Company. Timex watches were not sold under the name Timex in the U.S until 1950.
It was during World War I that wrist watches first became popular. Since that time, the company has sold over one billion watches worldwide.