Those into vintage watches might well have heard about Codex. A brand from La Chaux-de-Fonds which went out of business in the late 1960s, if I remember correctly. Their watches were well made and had a serious following mostly in Asian markets.

Did you know that up to 70% of all customers buying watches in the various watch shops in Lucerne are Chinese? The shops of Bucherer and Gübelin and many others are bustling with Chinese buying Swiss Made watches during their trip to Switzerland. You hear most of the big languages spoken in China as all shops have hired Chinese shop assistants.

But what does it have to do with Codex? The Chinese watch giant Ebhor took note of the trend and registered the brand Codex in July 2009 and hired Messrs. René Kohli and Laurence Courtois of Zénith and Cartier fame to set up a company called Swiss Chronometric SA in the heart of the Swiss watch making capital Bienne.

Ebhor which runs more than 1000 retail outlets all over China saw the gap in the market presented by the many Chinese visiting Switzerland and shall open its first brand boutique, you guess it, in Lucerne.

The first special watches they showed last Saturday were stunning pieces. They used all movements from Vénus from the 1950s as a base and took the industry by surprise as they succeeded in building up a team of 12 specialists and 68 people working at various suppliers exclusively for the re-born brand CodeX.

As Jean-Claude Biver the man behind the success of Hublot remarked dryly: “I wonder why the Chinese did not arrive earlier….”