History of Arios (Arvos) and Muros watch brands

Arios was a brand from Fabrique d’horlogerie Muros, Erwin Triebold. The name Muros was officially registered in 1944 and Arios in 1952 (source).

Arios logo on a watch from the 1970s. ”Arios” is very often mistaken as ”Arvos” because the hands in the logo can make it little difficult to read the name.

Erwin Triebold was born in 1907 and founded the watch factory Muros in 1939 (source). The factory  was located in the Mumpf municipality which is part of Rheinfelden district in the northern part of Switzerland

Erwin Triebold’s older brother was Robert Triebold that earlier in the 1930s had started the Agon watch factory also in Mumpf. But that is a different story. (Read more about Agon here.)

From old ads it can be seen that Muros was not only the name of the factory but also used as a brand on watches. Often Muros used generic movements like FHF 26 (from Fabrique d'Horlogerie de Fontainemelon) but probably Muros also produced their own movement. A certain manually wound movement with 15 jewels can be found with the inscription ”Muros Watch Factory”.

Muros ad from 1947. The factory both made pocket watches, wrist watches and alarm clocks.

Muros ad from 1948. Muros was the company behind the watch brand Arios among others.

Muros ad from 1957.

Watch from the 1950s with movement stamped ”Muros Watch Factory”

Besides Arios and Muros the watch factory had a lot of different brands, e.g. Arnand, Calan, Chronorex, Cypress, Dorsee, Duke, Fambo, Galan, Gene Autry, Kantor, Lareine, Lima, Marco, Melano, Meleur, Murindis, Murindo, Muro, Murondis, Ontime, Pandan, Radax, Regional and Triebold. Some of these names can be found on watches, e.g. Murondis and Radax. But we don’t know how many of these brand names actually have been in use.

A Radax pocket watch from Muros watch factory. With a C. Crettiez movement.

A Murondis chronograph from Muros watch factory. With a Baumgartner 670 movement.

It seems that Muros in the late 1940s and the beginning of the 1950s also made character watches for the American market. In the bottom of the dial they had a gun that would move two times per second.

A Gene Autry watch from 1948 made for the American market by Muros watch factory.

A cowboy watch with a moving gun from 1952 made by Muros watch factory.

Ad from 1953 from New Haven Clock and Watch Co. The watches had "the exclusive moving part" and were probably all - or at least partly - produced by Muros watch company.

The oldest Arios watch I have found seems to be from the 1960s. Note the logo that is different than on the Arios watches from the 1970s after the brand got new owners.

Arios watch that seems to be from the 1960s.

At the height Muros employed up to 140 workers but already in the 1960s the factory fell into economic problems and it was sold in the late 1960s or in 1970 to the ”swiss family Schulthess”. Maybe this was the company ”Desco von Schulthess” that since 1946 had success with selling brands like Audemars Piguet, Heuer and Jaeger-LeCoultre in the far east and was becoming increasingly interested in the watch business.

According to Mikrolisk the Muros factory at the same time changed its name to Arios Uhrenfabrik AG. The new Schulthess owners must have wanted to focus on Arios and drop the other brands. Even though the brand Arios had been registered in 1952 it doesn’t seem to have been very much used by Muros previously and nearly all Arios watches that can be found has a clear 1970s vibe.

Examples of Arios watches

In 1970 the new Arios watch factory presented an inexpensive watch with day and date and a gilt or chromed case at the Foire de Bale / Baselworld. Source

In 1973 Arios presented this digital watch with a mechanical movement at the Foire de Bale / Baselworld.
It had both a digital display and traditional hands. Source

At Foire de Bale in 1974 Arios presented an "economical" model with brushed and buffed surfaces meant for both men and women. Source.

Another Arios digital watch from the 1970s. 39 mm.

Another Arios watch from the 1970s. 39 mm.

This Arios watch is very 1970s with three bezels: Tachymetre, diver and world time. It has a manual Ronda 1217 movement and measures 40 mm. On the inside of the watch case is stamped "Arios Ltd".

Arios multi-function watch presented at  Foire de Bale in 1974. App. 40 mm wide w/o crown and 45 mm length.

Same Arios as above.

My Arios Tauchkalkulator from 1977 with a black case and black metal bracelet. It has 5 bezels. Size 44 mm. Find much more info about this model and a similar watch from Arios here.

According to this source Arios Uhrenfabrik AG ended in 1990 and this source says 1993. Any way no more watches with the name Arios was produced. And then suddenly in 2005 the domain www.arios.ch was registered. The site claims that it is a Swiss Watch Factory with ”Watchmaker’s Quality”. The old logo is used again and even some new watches are presented. However these new designs doesn’t seem to have been put into production yet - UPDATE 2019: On Reddit a user has posted an image of this Arios, so it actually has been produced. 

This image of an Arios watch is from 2013.

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