About Corum Watches

Montres Corum Sárl is the full name for Corum, a luxury watch line started in 1955 in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. Sitting only a few kilometers from the French border, the city is famous for its watchmaking. Gaston Ries and René Bannwart (uncle and nephew respectively) were the pair behind the brand.

Corum’s logo is an upward facing key, signifying the many mysteries of the world that are to be unlocked, and a reminder to their task as watchmakers to continue innovating how the world reads the time. The name “corum” also has significance. It comes from “quorum,” which is defined as the number of people required to solve a problem. The name and logo immediately situate the brand as putting itself in the position of revolutionizing timekeeping.

With each creation, Gaston and René made it clear that they wanted to be seen as the pinnacle of Swiss luxury watchmaking. Their early timepieces situated Corum as genuine creatives in the industry. The Chinese Hat, introduced in 1958, resembled the hat worn by those working in the rice fields of China. They also created the Coin Watch in 1964, which was prized by elite figures, including U.S. Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. The Coin Watch was, as the name, suggests, created from a gold coin, making the timepiece highly prized and unique.

The brand has since created several brilliant limited edition pieces that are both valuable and rare. The model the brand has grown to be most closely associated with is the Admiral’s Cup, which is named after the famous yacht race. It is meant to capture the exploratory spirit of time spent at sea and can is identified by its twelve-sided case and the flags present on the dials. Each flag is one piece to the semaphore alphabet, which is a form of visual communication between sailors and ships.

In 1966, the brand unveiled the Romulus followed by the Feather Watch in 1970. In 1976, the company formed a partnership with Rolls-Royce, which led to the creation of a Rolls-Royce watch designed after the automobile itself.

Created in 1980, the Golden Bridge was a highly innovative timepiece. This watch is stunningly designed, meant to appear as though it is floating in a sapphire crystal case. But what makes this model profound is its movement: the Golden Bridge was created with the first-ever hand-engraved Baguette movement, making it the envy of watch-connoisseurs throughout the world. While Corum had proved itself in the past, it was the Golden Bridge that cemented the brand’s reputation as a revolutionary and forward-thinking watchmaker.

In the past thirty years, Corum has continued to develop its existing lines with new features, exploring new shapes and innovations such as the Bubble Watch and the Trapeze. Corum has proved itself a technologically and artistically astute brand, continually evolving to provide the world with improved ways of keeping time.