Jules Jurgensen

Jules Jurgensen

Jules Jurgensen was a watchmaking company. It was founded by Jürgen Jürgensen in 1773 in Denmark, when Jürgen Jürgensen went into partnership with Isaac Larpent, under the name "Larpent & Jürgensen".

Upon Jürgen's death in 1811, his son Urban took over the company, keeping the name. It was changed in 1814.

Jules Jürgensen produced most of its watches in Switzerland. Jules Jürgensen was sold to a U.S.-based company in 1936, but watches were still produced in Switzerland until 1957, when the documentation shows the watches were made by other manufacturers and branded with the Jürgensen name.

In 1936 the depression was affecting the buying power of customers and the demand for great watches shrunk. Jules Jurgensen was sold to the New York house of Aisenstein-Woronock, who used up the old stock and began making nicely cased watches with well finished movements from ebauches.

A US watch distributor, Mort Clayman, purchased the company in 1974. Mort began using Japanese mechanical and quartz movements. Many watches were assembled in the US Virgin Islands, to qualify as “American Made” thus avoiding import tariffs. The profit margin was increased when the watches began using the Miyota 2035 quartz movements. These were very inexpensive and preceded the Chinese watch invasion. JJ watches were often value priced but a few models were surprisingly pretty good and others not so good.