About LIMES

Limes Watch Manufactory History

LIMES is an internationally renowned German watch brand with over 95 years of experience in the watch industry. Karl Ickler founded the family company Ickler GmbH in Pforzheim in 1924. He had initially worked as a production manager in foreign companies. The know-how learned flowed into his newly founded watch company, developing and manufacturing watches and watch cases. In 1947, the sons Heinz and Kurt Ickler rebuilt the production that had been idle during the war.

In 1980 Thomas Ickler founded the brand LIMES. Since 2021 Raphael Ickler is leading the watchbrand in the fourth generation. The LIMES watch collections include exclusive timepieces and professional diving watches with automatic, manual and chronograph movements. LIMES offers high quality mechanical watches - Made in Germany.

From design to construction, through prototypes and production of the case parts, polishing and grinding by hand to assembly and strict final inspection of the watches: Everything is made in Pforzheim, Germany. And if a LIMES needs service work, this will be done carefully in the watch manufacture or at one of our service centers abroad. This great vertical range of manufacture in Germany is an essential characteristic of the independent, family owned watch brand LIMES. Very few watch brands can offer such high added value in-house.

Watchtown Pforzheim History

In April 1767, Margrave Karl Friedrich von Baden laid the foundation for the development of the watch industry in Pforzheim. The establishment of a watch factory in the Pforzheim orphanage effected in a aspiring regional jewelry and watch industry. The aim was to guide the orphans through a possible education on the way to economical self-preservation. In 1849 the "watchmaker's trade association" for the Württemberg Black Forest was founded.

In 1922, the Pforzheim watch and watch case industry counted 30 companies, which are united in the trade association of the German watch industry founded in 1918.

In 1970, 28,000 counterfeited rights in 300 watchmaking companies in Pforzheim. As recently as 1985, Germany is the largest producer of watches and watch aprts in Europe.

As a result of the quartz crisis towards the end of the 1970s, this branch of industry came under pressure from right-wing competition from the Far East. The renowned vocational school for watchmakers in Pforzheim maintains and forfeits the bond with traditional watchmaking. Little by little, the traditional companies and young, ambitious watchmakers have restored the good reputation of the city of Pforzheim.