thecodex.expert / watches
Every watch brand.
Where it came from.
The most complete, sourced record of the world's watch brands: where they come from, what they make, and how to reach them officially.
We document. We never rank, recommend, or price the second-hand market.
Fuzzy search across every page and section. Matches close spellings, not meanings; press / anywhere to jump here.
Start anywhere
Five doors into the same sourced knowledge. Pick the one that matches how you already think about watches.
Opens one of the built pages at random.
How coverage works
Four tiers of depth, declared on the page rather than implied.
Every page states its tier and the month its facts were last checked against their sources. Tier A is a full dossier: every collection, a complete timeline, official contacts. Tier D is a verified name with a trademark or company record behind it. A brand moves up a tier when the documentation exists to carry it.
An empty field means not yet checked. It never means the fact does not exist. That distinction is the difference between a reference and a guess, and it is why the tier and the date sit at the top of every page.
| Tier | What qualifies | What the page carries | Target | Built |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A, Maisons | Heritage houses and the largest makers | Full dossier, every collection, landmark references, timeline, contacts | ≈ 80 | 4 |
| B, Established | Strong official documentation | Profile, collection list, timeline, contacts | ≈ 350 | 0 |
| C, Directory | Verifiable, modest documentation | Origin, group, contacts, price band | ≈ 1,500 | 0 |
| D, Index | A verifiable trademark or company record | One row in the A–Z index | 2,000+ | 0 |
Build status
Every card below without a Planned badge is a live page today. A card marked Planned is a commitment with no page behind it yet, so it renders dimmed and does not link anywhere, never as a live link that would 404.
By Brand
7 of about 1,930 brand pages built. Identity on a card is set in type, not in a logo: a brand's logo or photograph appears only once the Image Ledger records cleared rights for it.
Seiko
Founded 1881 · Seiko Group Corporation
The house that put the first commercially marketed quartz wristwatch on sale, then disclosed a large part of the patents behind it.
Citizen
Founded 1918 · Citizen Watch Co., Ltd.
A 1918 Tokyo research institute that became a company in 1930, maker of light-powered Eco-Drive watches and owner of Bulova and Frederique Constant.
Casio
Established 1957 · Casio Computer Co., Ltd.
A workshop that sold cigarette rings to fund a calculator, and the maker of a watch whose famous development goal it openly documents missing.
Omega
Founded 1848 · The Swatch Group Ltd
An 1848 workshop that took its name from one of its own movements, and the watch at the centre of a Moon question this Codex kept open for nine sessions.
Rolex
Founded 1905 · Rolex SA
A London distributor renamed after a name that came to its founder on the top deck of a bus, owned today by a private foundation, not by shareholders.
Longines
Founded 1832 · The Swatch Group Ltd
A meadow's own name became the brand's, and an independent UN agency calls its winged hourglass the oldest trademark still on its books.
Swiss Maisons
≈ 30 Tier A dossiers: Omega, Rolex and Longines are the first three
The Jura arc, Geneva, the Vallée de Joux and Biel/Bienne. Several of these houses appear already in the Legacy lens.
Glashütte and Pforzheim
Saxony and the Black Forest
A distinct industrial and design history, with its own museums and archives as primary sources.
Titan
Incorporated 1984 · Titan Company Limited
India's largest watch company, started as a joint venture with a State government, which is still a larger shareholder than the Tata holding company is.
By Country
0 of about 45 hubs built. Two facts are kept strictly apart: origin is the country of a brand's legal seat and heritage; manufacturing is where the watch is legally declared to be made. The law decides the second, not the marketing.
Switzerland
Brand count: to be verified
The Jura arc and the legal definition of "Swiss Made". UNESCO inscribed La Chaux-de-Fonds and Le Locle as "Watchmaking Town Planning" in 2009.
Japan
Brand count: to be verified
Quartz, solar and radio-controlled timekeeping, and the first commercially marketed quartz wristwatch in 1969.
Germany
Brand count: to be verified
Glashütte in Saxony, Pforzheim, and the Black Forest clock and watch trades.
India
Brand count: to be verified
A historic state-backed manufacturing story, a major domestic brand today, and a growing market for imported watches.
By Budget
Bands defined; brand placement begins when official list prices are recorded with a currency, a date and a source.
What these bands are. Eight classifications built on the manufacturer's own published list price, converted to US dollars for comparability, with the local-currency official price shown wherever the brand publishes one. Every band carries the date its prices were read.
What they are not. Not valuations, not appraisals, not offers, and not buying advice. Second-hand, auction and marketplace prices never appear anywhere in this Codex.
| Band | USD list price | Card name | Brands placed |
|---|---|---|---|
| B1 | Under $100 | Everyday | Pending |
| B2 | $100 – $500 | Great Value | Pending |
| B3 | $500 – $1,500 | Step Up | Pending |
| B4 | $1,500 – $5,000 | Well Made | Pending |
| B5 | $5,000 – $15,000 | Fine | Pending |
| B6 | $15,000 – $50,000 | Haute | Pending |
| B7 | $50,000 and above | Grand | Pending |
| B8 | Price on request, or not published | By Enquiry | Pending |
Recently verified
25–26 September 2026. Every claim here was confirmed on the issuing body's own site, and each one is in use on a page or behind an Academy question.
The "Swiss Made" cost rule
At least 60% of the costs of manufacturing a complete watch must be generated in Switzerland, a change from the earlier rule, which applied to the movement alone. In force since 1 January 2017.
COSC added a stricter tier
On 12 February 2026 COSC published an Excellence Chronometer certification that tests the finished watch to −2 to +4 seconds a day, in six semi-dynamic positions, with magnetic resistance checked at 200 gauss.
Swiss exports, full year 2025
Wristwatch exports totalled CHF 24.4 billion, down 1.7%, on 14.6 million units, down 4.8%. The United States took 17%. These are export values recorded at the border, not retail sales.
A correction to our own plan
A misconception this Codex intended to publish (that a water-resistance rating describes test pressure rather than a usable depth) could not be confirmed on ISO's own material, and ISO's published wording points the other way. Pulled before publication and logged.
Three rules, no exceptions
Official sources only
Every fact traces to a standards body, a statute, a registry, a museum record, a peer-reviewed journal or the company's own primary documentation. Never a forum, a marketplace, a dealer blog or another AI's summary.
Documentation, not advice
We record what named sources say. We never tell you what to buy, what is best, what a watch is worth, or what to collect. Where a company makes a claim about itself, we attribute it rather than adopt it.
Free, permanent, open
No ads, no paywalls, no sponsorship. No brand pays for, edits or removes anything here. Every image carries its licence; every correction is logged in public.