Squale
Brand History
Charles Von Büren starts a business in Neuchâtel, driven by his own passion for diving in the lake's waters, producing watch cases and components: sources disagree on the exact year of this initial start, placed depending on the account between 1946 and 1950, while the beginning of assembling watches under his own name in 1948 is better documented. On July 10, 1959, Von Büren officially registers the "Squale" brand and files a first patent for waterproof cases intended for underwater use, after personally verifying their watertightness while diving.
Over the following two decades Squale becomes one of the leading independent Swiss manufacturers of waterproof cases, supplying components on a contract basis to a large number of brands. The list of clients varies depending on the source and includes, with varying degrees of documentation, names such as Blancpain, Heuer (today TAG Heuer), Doxa, Zeno, Auricoste, Dodane and Airain, as well as smaller brands such as Altanus Genève, Arlon and Potens Prima. The most solidly documented case is that of Blancpain: some Squale cases, marked "Rayville SA" on the case back, are found fitted on 1950s Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe examples. During the same period the brand's best-known own-name references also take shape, such as Master, 1521 and 1545, and the company also supplies cases to the Italian Navy and its diver units.
Having become an independent entity from 1974, Squale halts mechanical production in 1989 following the quartz crisis. In 1982 Charles Von Büren sells the brand to the Maggi family, already the Italian distributors of Von Büren/Squale products. A long period of limited activity follows, before a relaunch that sources place between 2005 and 2010, initially based in Milan with production entrusted to Swiss manufacturers. In 2020 the headquarters is moved entirely to Chiasso, in Ticino: today Squale SA operates as an independent Swiss brand, led by Andrea Maggi, focused on the production of professional diving watches.
