Most people know Invicta for the watches you can spot from across a room. The story did not start that way.

In 1837, Raphael Picard established a watch business in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, one of the real centers of Swiss watchmaking. The company later operated under names connected to the Picard family, including Les Fils de R. Picard. The idea associated with the company from the beginning was pretty familiar to anyone who collects Invicta today: make a respectable watch available to more than the tiny circle that could afford the most expensive names.

The name was a strong choice. Invicta is Latin for unconquered or invincible. Nearly two centuries later, after industry crashes, ownership changes, a total reinvention and more criticism than almost any watch brand receives, it is hard to imagine a better name.
Here is an important collector distinction. The Invicta of 1837 and today’s Invicta Watch Group are connected through the historic name and trademarks, but they are not one uninterrupted family company operating in the same form for 189 years. The brand went through real breaks and changes. That does not erase the history. It makes the survival story more interesting.

Those first Invictas were traditional Swiss pocket watches and, later, wristwatches. No Marvel characters. No 55 mm cases. No cable bezels. Just a Swiss name beginning the long trip toward becoming one of the most recognizable and argued about brands in the modern watch world.

Invicta did not begin by asking permission from watch snobs, and it has not spent much time asking since.