ANGELUS

The newest “old” watchmaker on our list, Angelus was founded by brothers Albert and Gustav Stolz in 1891 in Le Locle, Switzerland, faded from the scene in the 1970s, and revived in 2015 to take its place alongside Arnold & Son as a modern-day luxury brand based in La Chaux-de-Fonds under the ownership of La Joux-Perret and the Japanese Citizen Group. In its original incarnation Angelus was known as a top-notch producer of chronographs and multifunction table clocks; its most famous example of the former was the ChronoDate model, which was reintroduced in a more luxurious limited edition in 2022. In the modern era, Angelus chiefly makes watches that are unmistakably avant-garde rather than historically inspired: one of its first releases was the U10 Lumiere Tourbillon, with a large rectangular titanium case with two chambers under two sapphire crystals in the front, one for a time display, the other for a flying tourbillon. The follow-up U50 Diver Tourbillon, launched in 2018, was the brand’s high-concept answer to the traditional diving watch, with a skeleton tourbillon caliber and an interior rotating bezel. The release of the vintage-look ChronoDate may portend a return to more conventional pieces, but time will tell.

Founded: 1891 (original), 2015 (relaunch)

Headquarters: La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland

Ownership: La Joux-Perret, Citizen Group

Notable models: U23, U50 Diver Tourbillon, Chronodate

Did you know: Angelus made the movement that Panerai used in its Radiomir Mare Nostrum prototype watch of 1943, a watch that would never be produced but would provide the template for the Panerai Submersible series.