The Racine family was well-known in watchmaking as early as the 1700's. There were many watchmaking businesses with a Racine family member involved, though only a few actually used the family name. One, Jules Racine Sr., had registered the family name as a watch brand. Therefore, when Ariste Racine and his wife Emma Blatt began their Manufacture d'Horlogerie Ariste Racine in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1913, they were unable to sell watches under their own name. Emma suggested reversing the family name "RACINE", and the "ENICAR" brand was born and registered on January 6, 1914. Nearly all of the products of the Ariste Racine company used the Enicar name by the 1920's, though they also held trademarks on Alprosa, Chromicar, Chrono M, Etsira, Longeau, Savillon, Swisbaby, Swisboy, Sykos, and Teddy. The company became a Société Anonyme in 1932 and took on the name of their main brand, Enicar S.A. It remained a family firm, however, with the children and cousins taking control once Ariste and Emma left in 1943. After World War II, under the leadership of Ariste Racine, Jr., Enicar modernized and expanded production. The company boasted that their movements were cleaned in a laboratory, leading to the Ultrasonic brand found on many watches in the 1950's and 1960's. The company had begun producing their own movements by then, with as many as 70,000 produced annually in the early 1950's. Their movements were quite accurate as well, with Calibre 1010 winning chronometer certification by the Neuchâtel Observatory for the first time in 1954. Enicar also developed a water-resistant case with an unusual bayonet back, introducing it as the Sea pearl in 1955. Enicar's own automatic movement, Calibre 1125 appeared in 1959. Over 100 different Enicar Sherpa watches were introduced in the following decade, becoming their most famous brand. Enicar also proved the ruggedness of their watches by attaching a Sherpa Ocean Pearl to the keel of the sailing ship Mayflower II as it crossed the Atlantic in 1957. This led to the creation of a family of Sherpa Dive watches. Many Sherpa watches were re branded with the "Star" name in the 1960's as Enicar modernized their designs. But the quartz crisis was not kind to Enicar, which was not absorbed into the Swiss conglomerates that became "Swatch Group". On November 13, 1987, Enicar was declared insolvent. Comments are closed.
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Old Time WatchesI enjoy collecting mechanical (manual wind and automatic) and early electric and quartz timepieces. I take great pleasure in researching and writing about the companies and people that created these beautiful watches. PF
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