Waldan Watches have been known in watch industry for decades. But there’s a lesser-known history behind the Waldan name, one that touches on many remarkable moments in the history of the watch industry. So many, in fact, you might find it hard to believe, but such is the extraordinary legacy of Oscar Waldan. Let’s start at the beginning.
Oscar Waldan was born in Poland in the 1920s and showed an early interest in timepieces when he disassembled his father’s pocket watch. But this wasn’t the mindless destruction that children sometimes get up to – he actually made diagrams that showed how to fit the parts back together. Despite this auspicious start, his horological dreams were put on hold after the start of World War II and the German invasion of Poland. Waldan was imprisoned in the Buchenwald and Theresienstadt Nazi concentration camps.
Buchenwald Concentration Camp
Despite this terrible experience, fortune had plans for Oscar. By chance, he crossed paths with an imprisoned Czech watchmaker, who took on young Oscar as his apprentice. The watchmaker’s skill in repairing the guards’ watches no doubt aided in Oscar’s survival. Having lost nearly everything and everyone dear to him, he forged ahead with his watchmaking education, moving first to New York to work at a repair shop, then returning to Europe to further his studies in Switzerland and Germany.
As his career took flight, Waldan was hired by Charles Tissot, where he tried his hand at designing watches, finding success with the well-received Tissot Navigator world-time watch. Following his stint at Tissot, Oscar became a successful sales executive in the US, but watch design was never far from his mind and the call of producing his own watch proved too great to resist.
In 1979, Waldan International was founded, with a factory in Bienne, Switzerland, and corporate offices with a repair center in New York. The new company concentrated its efforts on the high end, producing gorgeous complicated mechanical watches exclusively in precious metals, and flying in the face of the Quartz Crisis that was in the process of tearing down the Swiss watch industry. He took advantage of other makers’ wholesale liquidation of their movement stocks, snapping up calibers from Universal Geneve and others. His new watches would be designed around those classic movements, making the mechanical movement the selling point, despite the market climate of the time.
Oscar Waldan
Oscar learned that Zenith, then in turmoil after being bought out by the American Zenith Radio Corporation, was blowing up the company’s history, discontinuing basically all manufacture of mechanical watches. Originally, Oscar had planned to produce his own chronograph with some of Zenith’s stock, but fate stepped in when he discovered that Rolex was looking for a new movement for one of its most legendary references, the Daytona chronograph. Rolex wanted to modernize the line with an automatic movement. Enter Oscar Waldan.
In the years that followed, Oscar made a career as a private label maker of watches for the likes of Tiffany & Co., Ulysse Nardin, Cartier, Tourneau and Neiman Marcus. For these client watches, he would mark the inside of casebacks with a hidden “Waldan Creations” hallmark as a sly inside joke, a hint of things to come. In 2000 Oscar finally began producing high-end mechanical watches under his own name. His limited editions are highly sought by collectors, and thankfully, Waldan Watches still offers limited quantities of these gorgeous models here.
Donated by Oscar’s son, Andrew, the 'Waldan International Retro Alarm' gold wristwatch is up for auction through Rago/Wright here.
Today, Andrew Waldan carries on the legacy of his father with the addition of the American-assembled Heritage Series, which features the USA-made Ameriquartz movement. Playing to a younger audience while offering plenty of heritage, it’s decidedly more casual than Oscar’s intricate creations, these everyday wear timepieces offer great quality for the price, and have plenty of classic design cues, including the “stepped” lugs that were a hallmark of many of his father’s beautiful cases.
It’s important to note that Andrew has stuck to his roots, by basing Waldan in New York, his father’s home for many years, and where he did some of his most accomplished work. You can see his beautiful work here https://waldanwatches.com.
One of Oscar Waldan’s designs, Waldan International Retro Alarm gold wristwatch is up for auction benefiting the Brian LaViolette Foundation. You can bid on this unique and history watch through Rago/Wright here.
