The Origins of Steinhausen

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In Steinhausen, Switzerland, during the early 1900s, Ulrich Van-Heusen was a highly-touted watchmaker, inventor and architect laboring day after day, attempting to build the world’s first automatic calendar watch. He lived in an era in which only wealthy individuals could afford a timepiece. And they were custom-made solely for influential people who asked for one.

In 1923, Ulrich Van-Heusen had completed his first automatic calendar watch. The repercussions of this engineering feat had yet to be felt by humanity.

In 1928, after building a few of these ground-breaking timepieces for select individuals, Van-Heusen began a family watch business along with his two sons, building a variety of watches that would astonish the world, including ones with calendar displays, chronographs (i.e. precise timekeeping devices), skin-line type watches and skeleton (transparent face) watches.

Ulrich Van-Heusen named his particular brand of watch Steinhausen, after Ulrich Van-Heusen’s father’s ancestral name. It served as a reminder of his noble heritage. And soon would be associated with the most celebrated watches on earth. Van-Heusen would eventually sell Steinhausen watches to kings, army generals, czars, princes and emperors from Monte Carlo to Russia.

In an era in which pocket watches were prevalent, Ulrich Van-Heusen remained steadfast in his belief that wristwatches would eventually be a personal element people wouldn’t be able to live without. History proves he was right. Wristwatches eventually became the norm for men of every social stratum.

Van-Heusen passed on his expertise, knack for precision, watch-making experience, workmanship habits and attention to quality to his two sons. They soon began selling distinguished watches to famous retailers and jewelry boutiques around the world.

Excellence passed on to succeeding generations

In 1938, two decades after World War I, Ulrich Van-Heusen’s son, Klaus Van-Heusen, had assumed the role of proprietor of Steinhausen. He continued the tradition of building newly designed watches that would appease the most demanding consumer. And he would invent new watch technologies such as day-of-week display and scratch-resistant sapphire crystal face.

Ulrich Van-Heusen died in 1940.

In 1961, Erica Van-Heusen, granddaughter of Ulrich, at the age of 27, became the next proprietor of Steinhausen. Sales skyrocketed because of her keen business acumen. Erica Van-Heusen started assembly factories in Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea. To find rubies and sapphire crystals for Steinhausen products, she established mines in South Africa and India. Van-Heusen also developed more manufacturing sites in Switzerland, Germany and the Czech Republic.

In 1997, after making a name for itself in the watch market in the United States, Asia and Europe, Steinhausen started assembling watches in China, with the same precision and quality as the original factories in Switzerland. Using Swiss components, the Chinese watchmakers had been trained and taught the secrets of automatic movement by Swiss master watchmakers. These Chinese watchmakers learned highly-advanced watch-making techniques, which account for the production of automatic watch movements at the Steinhausen factory in Shanghai. All Steinhausen timepieces are still handmade and tested against Steinhausen’s rigorous standards.

Steinhausen Across the World

In the present day, Steinhausen continues to market its prestigious line of watches on four separate continents (Europe, the United States, Japan and China). All marketing rights have been given exclusively to Aroa Marketing our direct manufacturer's representative to DigitalGiftStore.com, with offices in California—USA, Switzerland—Europe, Dubai—Middle East, Kyoto—Japan, Hong Kong and Guangdong—China.

For the finest in timepieces, Steinhausen is the answer. That won’t ever change.

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