The history of the Longines brand started in 1832 in Saint-Imier, when Auguste Agassiz founded his watchmakers’ concern. In this type of establishment, known as a comptoir d’établissage, peasants made the watches at home, and Agassiz would then finish the assembly and sell them. But the firm already had an international reach at the time, selling watches in as far flung places as the United States of America.