• 1888-1915: Genisis
• 1916-1926: Growth
• 1927-
• References & Credits

• Movement Data
  • All Calibres
  • Automatic Calibres
    • MST 410, 411
    • MST 420, 421
    • MST 436, 437
    • MST 441, 452
    • MST 470, 471
    • MST 522, 523
  • Manual Calibres
    • 175
    • 253, 277
    • 351, 352, 364, 400, 401
    • 371, 372
    • 416
  • Special Calibres
    • MST 416 Calendar
    • MST 417 Alarm
    • MST 427 Alarm
  • Foreign Calibres
• Cases and Crystals
• Lift angles
• Interchange data
• Service documents
• Patents

• My Watches
• Period Adverts

• Military Watches
• Stingrays
• Rockshells
• Mustangs
• Alarm & Calenders

1888	The origins of the Roamer Watch Company hark back to 1888, when the first enterprise in what would later become MST and even later Roamer was established by the then 29 year old by Fritz Meyer. The Meyer workshop produced a single product - a cylinder escapement for sale to etablisseurs or assemblers. In its earliest days the company had 6 employees and fitted in very much with the traditional Swiss cottage industry, whereby small independant workshops would each supply a single, or small range of specialised product(s) that would then be assembled into an entire watch by an etablisseur. It was this environment into which the company was born, and the later changes within the company to a large degree mirrored the changes in the Swiss watchmaking industry as it grew from a cottage industry into a modern industrialised manufacturing base - that is, mergers, aquisitions, modern integrated factories, and a continual move upwards in terms of quality.
1895	Meyer formed an Etablisseur, or assembler - using ebauches, components, cases and dials made by other firms.
1897	60 employees and the first in-house calibre, number 38 - named in honor of Fritz Meyer's 38th birthday.
1900	The brand 'Femina' registered
1903	The brand 'Moles' registered
1905	Fritz (Frederic) Meyer entered into partnership with the watchmaker Johann (Jean) Studeli to form the firm of Meyer and Studeli, Studeli withdrew from the partnership some time after 1920.
1906	120 employees (Prof. Werner Flury, Die industrielle Entwicklung des Kantons Solothurn, 1907)
1907	A bright and spacious new factory was built. The new factory could accomodate 300 workers - almost twice the present size of the company. The products at this time concentrated on cheap cylinder movements for mens and ladies watches and the company was extremely profitable. There are some claims made in modern histories of the company an example that MST began making lever escapements at this point in time. However this appears to be incorrect, as in horological periodicals of the time (i.e. La Fèdèration Horlogèrie - Suisse) advertising in 1908-1909 lists only cylinder and not ancre production, also the employee figures (quoted as many as 400) are well in excess of the numbers reported at this time by Flury in his treatise on the state of industry in Solothurn.
1908	21st April, 1908 - Roamer trademark registered in Switzerland, reg 23699.
1909	British branch set up by Leo Meyer, later in 1915 passed over to and run by Charles Meyer until 1945.
1915	Patent: case mounting screw mechanism
1916	In a move upmarket MST purchased Tièche-Gammeter, who were makers of high quality lever escapements. The Vidar brand was owned by Tièche-Gammeter, and at this time transfered to MST. MST also purchased an ebauhces factory in the Wiessesteinstrasse in Solothurn.
1917	MST became a limited liability company, Fritz Meyer was the chairman, the directors included Johann Studeli, and Meyer's sons Leo and Hermann Meyer and son-in-law Heinrich Benisch. At this time the company makes a move to differentiate their brands and product ranges. Roamer, becomes the premium brand applied to MSTs jeweled swiss-lever movements while Meda/Medana will be used for clyinder and later pin lever movements.
1919	Fritz's youngest son Ernst joins the board of directors.
1920	Roamer and Medana brands registered as trademarks in the USA (granted in 1922) and UK (granted in 1921).
1922	Patent: case alloy - gold subsitiute.
1923	In-house case production begins, now with the integration of most of the manufacturing processes MST has a total of six branch factories.
1924	Highest daily production record of 5000 watches.
1926	Fritz Meyer dies at the age of 67.
1927	The MST logo registered.
1932	All major compentents; movements, cases and now dials all made in-house. Note the MST branded dial printing machine in the photograph. By this stage MST employed around 1,200 workers. As was common with many Swiss companies of the time, MST offered extensive welfare assistance to its workers and their families - this would later become the Roamerhaus Welfare Centre.
1933	Patent: self-winding watch (CH 169396 US 2,013,386 GB 439677) Oscillating pendulum/weight.
1936	Patent: Two part waterproof stem (CH 180459), Ernest Morf (not MST) but will be used extensively by MST.
1938	Modern Roamer logo registered (UK)
1940*	First automatic (bumper), using the Felsa 278/9
1941	Patent: Waterproof case (CH 215999), Ernest Morf (not MST) but will be used extensively by MST.
1945	Charles Meyer died.
1945*	Adoption of the E. Morf patent waterproof case and crown system. This date is a best guess, obviously 1941 is the earliest possible date - but this later date based on the style of the earliest examples I have seen.
1948	Patent: Bi-directional full rotor winding with small lost angle (CH272613), used in first MST rotor automatic.
1948	Patent: Decoupling of manual and automatic winding mechanisms (CH274012), used in first MST rotor automatic.
1950*	First in-house rotor automatic MST 410/411, using patents above. Could be late 1940s.
1951	MST changed its name to its most prestigeous brand Roamer.
1952	Patent: Amplifying back design, for the alarm calibre MST 417 (CH 304446)
1953	A number of high profile engineers/horologists were associated with Roamer around this time and they made a significant contribution to the renaisance at Roamer in the 1950s. Time for a role call: Bernard Humbert People often express surprise that a mid range movement company like Roamer could produce a technical triumph of a movement so many years ahead of everyone else like the MST436 from 'out of the blue' so to speak. What is interesting is the renaisance MST/Romer went through in the 1950s, the developments of which resulted in the golden era of the 1960s. In this period almost 40 patents were granted to the company, 18 of which list Bernard Humbert as the inventor. From the patent dates it is clear Bernard worked with or at MST on their prestige automatic movement - the MST436 and was the major contributor to its design. So, why was this man so significant? He wrote articles that appeared in the Horological Journal and the Journal Suisse d'Horlogerie, amongst others. He was the author of two important horological books of the 1950s, Modern calendar watches: Detail of calibers, repair (1954) - for half a century one of the most widely used text and reference book on how to service, adjust and repair the calendar mechanisms in 20th century watches, and Swiss self-winding watches (1956). It is probably not surprising then that Bernard Humbert was also the Professor of Complications at the Watchmakers School in Bienne. Walter Uebelhart Two patents for Roamer from 1956 and 1957 for calendar mechanisms. Walter Uebelhart later worked for Le Coultre. Andre Jeanrichard Sharing the name of a famous horological family - perhaps a coincidence, perhaps not. He worked on automatic/manual winding mechanisms in the mid 1950s and was responsible for 3 patents. Max Meyer The Meyer family were still invoved at the cutting edge, for example, in 1953 Max Meyer, patented an automatic rotor bearing.
1955	Patents: Improved waterproof case design (CH 305467, 305776, 307382, 308491 ).
1955	Anfibio launched.
1955-1959	Many patents for calendar mechanisms. Development of the calendars was for the MST 430/436, in the meantime Roamer used Felsa 4002 (MST 441) and 4007 (MST 452) automatic movements with date alongside their in-house (and non date MST420).
1959	Patent: Eccentric micro/precision regulator (CH338769)
1962	MST414/430 and the star of the lineup the 44 jewel MST 436 launched.
1967	Dr Ernst Meyer dies
1972	First quartz watch.
1973	Last patent? Date and day advance mechanisms. Used in 52X? Check.
1975	Movement manufacture halts. "The Roamer Watch Co. in Solothurn, one of the last remaining family-owned watchmaking firms in Switzerland, is closing its independent watch-parts production in a drastic reorganization and has been granted a four-month moratorium on..." This is from the American machinist: Volume 119, 1975 and is the only snippet of information we have. Clealy Roamer remained in the Meyer family until this date. Did the closure actually happen? It makes the large number of 52X movements hard to reconcile with the accepted calibre introduction date of 1975. The newest watch with this calibre I have witnessed was not sold until 1986, while some stock could have been slow to shift this is difficult to believe - perhaps the 'restructure' preserved some limited manufacturing capacity?
1983	Meyer fmamily ownership of Roamer comes to an end. Roamer was incorporated into the the Swiss ASUAG group (Société Générale de l'Horlogerie Suisse SA) - later, in turn, to become part of the SWATCH group.
1986	Many trademarks (such as the Roamer logo, Stingray etc expired).
1994	Roamer purchased by the Hong Kong based Chung Nam Company.

MST brands: Cedric, Cobea, Delia, Effem, Femina, LTG, Meda, Medana, Moles, MST, Niobe, Rima, Roamer, Satisfaction, Tiega, Vidar. (Mikrolisk) for logos and other information

Thanks to: Thomas Dutton and Steve Truelove (Marrick) for their major contributions.

Information on this page derived from various sources: The Horological Journal, 1963-239, Prof. Werner Flury, Die industrielle Entwicklung des Kantons Solothurn, 1907, US Patent and Trademark office, the UK IPO, the EU patent database, and various materials catalogues and advertising from the Roamer Watch Company.

If you have information to offer, or corrections to the information on this page, please don't hesitate to contact me. A '*' indicates an estimated date and should be treated as such.