The history of watch making is full of names from the great watch making houses. The names of the great watch makers live on with their watches as testimony to what made them great in the first place. The watch makers each have a different story to tell, how they came about, what made them great, and for some when and how they disappeared.

Watch makers have continually striven to improve their product to gain a greater market share. This continual development of watches has seen the focus of the watch making industry change from one country to another country. France, England, Germany, Switzerland, Japan and the US have all played a sizeable roll at different stages in the history of watch development. This backward and forward focus has contributed to many of the names in watch making history ceasing to be.
The different history of each watch making house is the basis of most peoples interests in collecting watches. The collectors of watches keep alive the names of past watch makers and well as the current watch makers. Some of the great names in watches have specialized in certain areas of the watch market, while others have tried to cater to the full range of the market. This specialization of some houses clearly dictataes their long term progress within the industry.

With this in mind we have tried to give a basic overview of the most important watch makers. Please visit the links on the left for some details about each of the watch making houses.