Excelsior Park
History of Excelsior Park
Founded by Henri Jeanneret-Brehm, a member of the Jeanneret watchmaker family, who purchased the Magnenat-LeCoultre factory in Saint-Imier in 1911 with financial assistance from the Gallet company. He had previously registered the Excelsior name but added the English "Park" at the suggestion of Gallet to make their products more accessible to English-speaking buyers.
From 1918 through 1983, Excelsior Park manufactured a range of stopwatches, branded watches, and watch movements for Gallet, Girard Perregaux, and Zenith. The company focused on timing movements, including stopwatches and chronographs, and was quite successful in the post-war period. Their chief competitor (especially for business with Zenith) was Martel and their close partner, Universal. Excelsior Park continued the manufacture of chronographs and stop-watches until the years 1970 w. Some interesting models will make their appearance in the range: a Yachting model about 1964 with a moving backward minutes counter for the departure of the regattas, a diver model with a revolving bezel shortly after, and especially the Excel-O-Graph, chronograph provided with a bezel rule slide, in the great tradition of the Breitling Chronomat. After the quartz crisis, Excelsior Park was unable to continue operations. Gallet purchased the remaining stock to service their customers and the name went to Flume Company of Germany who were unable to revive it.
Models
Movements/Calibers
- EP 1 - 44 mm "Compteur"
- EP 11 - "Compteur-rattrapante"
- EP 2 - 43 mm "Compteur"
- EP 20 - Compteur avec compteur d'heures
- EP 22 - Distance entre les deux aiguilles compteur-rattrapante
- EP 222 - Distance entre les deux aiguilles compteur-rattrapante
- EP 42 - Ovoid 27.1x29.4 mm chronograph (formerly called "Excelsior Park 12/13")
- EP 4 - 31.6 mm chronograph based on EP 42, also with "mise à l'heure de la seconde"
- EP 40 - chronograph with hour counter based on EP 4
- EP 5 - 23.5 or 26 mm
- EP 51
- EP 6 - 40.6 mm "Compteur-football"
- EP 7 - 36 or 42 mm Rèveil
- EP 15 - 42 mm chronograph
- EP 16 - 42 mm, 4.5 mm
- EP 17 - 42 mm, 5 mm
