Today, Bifora is a mostly unknown name for most watch collectors, but back in the 1960’s it was one of the largest watch manufacturers in Germany; employing over a 1000 people making up to 4000 watches a day. The company had been established 60 years earlier around 1900 by Joseph Bidlingmayer. Joseph had been born in Strassdorf close to Stuttgart Germany. He would later be educated as a goldsmith in Switzerland, when his studies was finished he travelled to the U.S.A. where he stayed a few years before returning to Germany. Back in Germany he set up a successful jeweller company in Shwäbisch Gmünd. He was quick to pick up on the trend of wristwatches and before long the company specialised putting together wristwatches using Swiss movements. That was to change in 1928 when Bifora manufactured its first wrist watch movement. It was the first German made lever wristwatch movement. The company survived WW2 and resumed watch production after the war. The quality varied from low end pin pallet movements to mid range lever movements. 1951 was the year they introduced Germanys first automatic movement (calibre 105AUT) and in 1955 the company introduced a higher quality movement (calibre 120) where the top version was chronometer certified. In January 1967 Joseph died leaving behind him a highly respected and successful company. The following year Bifora launched a new workhorse calibre 115 to replace various colection of lower grade movements. Bifora were not able to survive the 1970’s when cheap quartz watches swamped the market.
I have always been fascinated by Bifora watches since a client had one serviced several years ago. It inspired me to get a similar watch for myself.
I recently service another Bifora 115 for myself as you can see in the video link bellow and I figured it would be fun to do a movement review at the same time. Click on the link bellow to see the movement review.