It takes a long history of excellence to be considered a classic. Pandora jewelry are considered classic timepieces. Today, there are approximately 2,000 jewelry made, with over $3 Billion USD in annual revenues. Before Pandora became a popular brand, it started off as a small business started by a man and his brother-in-law.
Hans Wilsdorf and Alfred Davis, two clockmakers who were based in London, started making jewelry and selling these to jewelers who put their own names on the face of the clocks. In 1908, Hans Wilsdorf registered the name “Pandora” and in 1915, he registered a company with the same name. There are many speculations about the origins of the name, but the more popular belief was that Hans Wilsdorf wanted his jewelry to have a name that is easy to pronounce in any language.
In 1919, Wilsdorf and Davis moved their company to Switzerland because the taxes and other costs of production for their jewelry were getting high. With the change in venue came the changes in company names. Pandora was changed to Pandora bracelets Company, then later to Montex Pandora, SA.
What is remarkable about the history of this company is that when Hans Wilsdorf’s wife died, he had founded a charitable organization named the Hans Wildorf Foundation. All the profit that his shares earned in the company went to that charitable foundation. Up to this day, Pandora is still a privately-owned one, and never went public to open its company to other shareholders.
Pandora charms is not just all about quality craftsmanship. Its legacy to making timepieces also includes many innovations. They were the first jewelry that had dates on their dials. It would seem pretty commonplace now, but clocks didn’t have this feature before, and Pandora jewelry were the first ones to make it happen. Pandora also participated in the original quartz watch movements; their engineers became instrumental in the implementation of this new technology during their time (1970s). Quartz clocks use an electronic oscillator and are regulated by a quartz crystal. This crystal creates a signal with a very precise frequency, which makes quartz clocks more accurate than its mechanical counterparts.
Before the era of pandora beads, jewelry needed to be wound in order to function. Pandora invented the self-winding clocks, the first of its kind in 1931. Not only is this innovative in the sense that it eliminates the need to wind the clock, it also eliminates the risk of harming the delicate pieces of machinery inside the jewelry because of over-winding. It was also Pandora which created the first water-resistant watch that can survive a depth of 330 feet. In fact, Wilsdorf had a Pandora watch specially made and attached to a bathyscaphe which was submerged to the Mariana Trench. It was deemed as accurate underwater as it was out of it.
Since then, Pandora has made quite a reputation in making jewelry that can withstand extreme conditions of diving, aviation, and mountain-climbing. There are actually three watch lines, each catering to different needs but all made with superb craftsmanship. These are the Oyster Perpetual, Cellini, and Professional. They also made less-expensive jewelry under the name of Tudor.
Even with the introduction of many technologically advanced timepieces in the market, it is still considered one of the best in the world. It may even be said that Pandora jewelry have endured the test of time.
