Armin Strom AG has its roots in Burgdorf located northwest of Bern, Switzerland. The history of the watch factory begins with the founder and namesake of the business, Armin Strom. After completing his watchmaking apprenticeship and gaining early independent business experiences in Lotzwil and St. Moritz, the still young Armin Strom opened his own shop in the Altstadt (Old Town) area of Burgdorf in the year 1967.
In addition to selling and restoring watches, he soon began working on his own creations in the workroom behind the shop. His first masterpiece was a gold pocket watch, with a hand-engraved dial in polished blue lapis lazuli. His mature manual dexterity and incredible attention to detail soon made the budding watchmaker aware of where to specialize in the art of skeletonizing. His idea of cutting away all the parts of the movement which have no active function for its operation characterizes the appearance of Armin Strom watches to this day. He then set about engraving and decorating the remaining parts with intricate detailing and fitting them into fine cases. Although initially available only from his shop, creations from Armin Strom were first presented at the Basel Watch and Jewellery Fair in 1984. The timepieces soon came to the attention of the media, and customers from all over the world began to show an interest in the hand-skeletonized pieces. The Armin Strom collection had grown to 20 models by the mid-1980s. Then Armin Strom also ventured into the production of his first wristwatch for women. His goal of designing this to be as small as possible gained him an entry in The Guinness Book of World Records as the smallest watch ever to be skeletonized by hand. His reputation and recognition at an international level brought Armin Strom contracts in the 1990s from some watch companies, for which he would skeletonize a number of series by hand. In the meantime, his own brand was expanding continuously as the result of increasing demand. The company was incorporated as Armin Strom AG in 2006, and in 2009 it moved into its new, large production facility in the watchmaking town of Biel. In 2009, the first in-house Manufacture-Calibre, the ARM09 was presented. The first in-house calibre ARM09 was followed by other manual winding calibres and the most recent, the Tourbillon calibre ATC11 was celebrated with a limited set of 4 timepieces – The “Coffret” Tourbillon.
