Vintage Gruen Curvex advertisement from 1947<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nThe forties brought on World War II – a time when despite the large demand for watches, no American-made watches were available for civilians to purchase. This created a scenario where retailers began importing Swiss brands to fill the demand. Brands like Omega and Longines held onto the market share they gained after the war ended, and this was the beginning of the decline for the American watch industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gruen, however, was a dual Swiss and American company, so this was actually an advantage. It was able to sell military styled watches during the war, and was able to keep producing at its Precision Factory after the war as well (as opposed to American competitors who had to complete big military contracts and retool factories).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Gruen family eventually sold its interests in the company in 1953, despite sales hitting the highest mark in the company’s history. By the time the year 1958 came around, Gruen Industries (as it was now called), was broken apart. The pieces were sold off and the brand never recovered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bond’s Dress Watch<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Bond is undeniably tied to Omega nowadays, but back in the sixties, Sean Connery had two watches: A Rolex Sub (for when things got rough) and a Gruen Precision (for when things got classy). The sixties Bond had the good taste to wear an actual dress watch in the more formal occasions he found himself in. I think Gruen is one of those brands that has a deep, rich history that’s largely slipping away (having all your brand’s records destroyed will do that to you). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the very least, we should rightly give it credit as the first “Bond watch”, as well as an innovator and (formerly) great American brand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Know more about Gruen and want to add to the discussion? Please post a comment below!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you think of “Bond, James Bond”, which watch comes to mind? Is it an Omega Seamaster of some sorts? Or Perhaps the iconic Rolex Submariner? Maybe even one of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":707,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"WB4WB4WP_MODE":"","WB4WP_PAGE_SCRIPTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_STYLES":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FONTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_HEADER":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FOOTER":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[103],"tags":[83,82,10,81,59],"aioseo_notices":[],"class_list":["post-381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-watchmaking-history","tag-gruen","tag-james-bond","tag-omega","tag-rolex","tag-vintage-watch-advertisement"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lugsandlume.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Vintage-Gruen-Curvex-Advertisement.jpg?fit=924%2C1232&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdlD1b-69","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lugsandlume.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lugsandlume.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lugsandlume.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lugsandlume.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lugsandlume.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lugsandlume.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4290,"href":"https:\/\/lugsandlume.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381\/revisions\/4290"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lugsandlume.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lugsandlume.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lugsandlume.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lugsandlume.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}