Forgotten Watch Brands the Deserve a Comeback

If I were a mad scientist, my lab wouldn’t be cluttered with test tubes or bubbling green goo; it would be stacked with dusty watch boxes, cracked crystals, and movements long since stopped. Forget stitching together corpses; I’d be hunched over with a loupe, waiting for a lightning strike to bring long-dead watch brands back to life. Because if the watch world loves anything, it’s a comeback story: ask Universal Genève, freshly jolted awake by Breitling. But why stop there? America once pulsed with the tick of Elgin, a Chicago giant that deserves another swing at glory. Gruen, that Ohio-Swiss hybrid, had style and smarts worth reviving. And Lemania, the chronograph sorcerer behind legends, shouldn’t be left to rot in the horological graveyard. So grab your torches and pitchforks, because I’m heading into the crypt to dig up a few brands that are dying—pun intended—for a resurrection. Make sure you read to the end for the bonus round. 

Deep in the ruins of Elgin, Illinois, lies the slumbering body of the Elgin National Watch Company, a beast once so large it ticked across the entire United States. Born in 1864, Elgin was the horological factory of Frankenstein proportions: over 60 million watches produced in its lifetime, making it the largest watch manufacturer in America. This wasn’t some creaky basement operation; Elgin had its own observatory to ensure this timekeeping colossus was as precise as Swiss creations. For decades, Elgin was the beating heart of American pockets and wrists, from everyday workers to soldiers in both World Wars. But like all great titans, it stumbled; foreign competition and changing tastes drove it to its grave by 1968. Imagine, though, if we struck it with a lightning bolt today: a reborn Elgin, a true American-made powerhouse rising from the Midwestern cornfields, ready to challenge the Swiss on their own turf. Tell me you wouldn’t buy a piece of that monster.

The first watch I’d recreate:  B.W. Raymond, Grade 730A - Created in 1960, this was the first-ever railroad-grade wristwatch. 

Some monsters are stitched together from mismatched parts, and none more stylishly than Gruen. Although he started making watches in 1876, co-founding the Columbus Watch Company, in 1894, Dietrich Gruen founded D. Gruen and Sons in Ohio. The company was an early pioneer in blending American casework and Swiss movements. It was a horological chimera; half Old World precision, half New World industrialization. Gruen was behind innovations like the VeriThin pocket watch and the iconic Curvex wristwatch, whose curved cases hugged the wrist long before ergonomics was a buzzword. For decades, Gruen watches were a status symbol, worn by everyone from businessmen to Hollywood stars. But by the mid-1950s, infighting among the Gruen heirs, financial missteps, and the relentless pressure of the quartz crisis pushed the brand into its coffin. Reviving Gruen today would be like resurrecting something with brains and beauty: elegant, slightly eccentric, and still straddling that Atlantic divide. A reanimated Gruen could once again be the mad scientist’s masterpiece.

The first watch I’d recreate:  Airflight Jumping Hour - Released sometime in the late 50s or early 60s, this watch featured a 24-hour jump dial whose numerical indices would switch from 1-12 to 13-24 at 1 pm. 

If Elgin was the giant and Gruen the chimera, then Lemania was the sorcerer in the castle tower, conjuring movements that powered legends. Founded in 1884 by Alfred Lugrin, Lemania specialized in chronographs, stopwatches, and complicated movements. Their spellbook was thick with innovations, culminating in the famed Lemania 2310 (which you may know more commonly as the Omega calibre 321); a movement so good it powered the Omega Speedmaster Professional, as well as high complications for Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, and Breguet. This wasn’t just a watchmaker; it was the wizard behind the curtain of Swiss horology. Sadly, the brand was folded into Breguet in the 1980s, and the Lemania name was left to rot in the dungeons of history. But imagine if the sorcerer returned, lightning crackling, raising an army of new chronographs to rival the best of modern watchmaking. The spell hasn’t been broken; it’s just waiting for a mad enough scientist to chant the incantation.

The first watch I’d recreate:  Lemania 16674 Chronograph - Honestly, I think any chronograph bearing the Lemania name and the 2310 movement would do, but this one, recreated with modern materials, would be ***chef’s kiss***. 

Every good horror flick has a twist ending, and mine is Invicta. Yes, technically they’re still alive, if by “alive” you mean lurching around malls with 56mm wrist-bricks dipped in neon paint. But once upon a time, Invicta was a very different creature. Founded in 1837 in La Chaux-de-Fonds by Raphael Picard, the company built a reputation for precision and quality, producing elegant Swiss timepieces that collectors actually whispered about with reverence. By the 1930s and ’40s, Invicta was a respected name in horology, its watches prized for accuracy and durability. They were invincible, just as the Latin name promised.

And then… something went wrong in the lab. Maybe a quartz fly landed in the beaker. Maybe it was a deal with the devil (or with QVC). But somewhere between bankruptcy in the ’50s and the brand’s resurrection in the U.S., Invicta staggered into a glowing chamber and came out… this. A mutant factory of oversized, bedazzled divers and flame-pattern dials, more likely to blind you at ten paces than impress a collector.

Here’s the thing: researching Invicta’s past actually softened me. The vintage Invicta was a respectable, serious Swiss watchmaker. And while today’s Invicta might be the punchline of the horological monster movie, part of me wishes we could spin the reel backward, reverse the mutation, and bring back the brand that once deserved its name. Imagine an Invicta that lived up to “invincible” again, instead of one that looks like it was designed by a sugar-high kaiju with a bedazzler. Now that’s a resurrection worth rooting for.

The first watch I’d recreate: Literally anything that isn’t a 50mm hockey puck. 

Every monster movie ends the same way: the villagers think the beast is vanquished, the castle collapses, the torches die out. But then, just before the credits roll, an eye flickers open, or a claw twitches from beneath the rubble. That’s how I feel about the brands we’ve dug up here. Elgin, Gruen, Lemania, and yes, even Invicta in its pre-mutant glory, aren’t gone for good. They’re just waiting in the shadows, buried in the archives and old catalogues, ready for the right mad scientist (or daring CEO) to harness enough electricity for a resurrection. If the watch industry has taught us anything, it's that in the horological graveyard, nothing stays dead forever.