Joseph Gunzinger
Swiss watchmaker (1892-1970)
Josef Gunzinger (March 23, 1892, in Welschenrohr, Solothurn, Switzerland – May 1, 1970, in Heiligenschwendi) was a Swiss watchmaker. In 1962, he was made "citizen of honor" of the town where he was born.
Son of Melchior Gunzinger, watchmaker, and Elizabeth Allemann. Married in 1920 to Rosalia Allemann, a household skills teacher.
Upon his apprenticeship as a watchmaker in his father’s workshop, he went to La Chaux-de-Fonds for a one-year furthering of his skills.
Business
1920 he took over the family business and changed the name of the company into Gunzinger Brothers SA. As from 1924, the company started manufacturing watches under the TM Technos that he had previously officially registered.
At its peak in 1970, Technos employed 450 people and exported around the world, particularly in Brazil and Japan. It was by far the biggest employer of the whole valley.
He sold the whole company to General Watch Company in 1971, a sub-holding of ASUAG.
Accomplishments
Josef Gunzinger was a co-founder of the Federation of the Swiss German watch manufacturers in 1924.
He was Welschenrohr Community Councilor (Executive) between 1917 and 1931, and a member of the Canton of Solothurn Grand Council (1921-1925).
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Joseph Gunzinger” as swiss watchmaker (1892-1970). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 8, 2023. The linked authority identifier is Q3185051. VIAF identifies the subject as 29145193249670460574. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1892, 1970, 1962 and 1920.
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This entry incorporates text from “Joseph Gunzinger” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.