A funny thing happened on the way to the launch of the Oberlin Watch Company. While I can say with a fair amount of confidence that there has never been an Oberlin Watch Company before, curious to relate? There was an actual Oberlin watch!
For those of you who are not well-versed in French pharmaceutical history, allow me to inform you that going back more than 100 years ago, there was a French pharmaceutical company named, you guessed it - Oberlin!
The watch pictured above was actually created by a French watch making company based in Besançon. As far as I (and others) have been able to figure out, the Oberlin Pharmaceutical company likely purchased a group of watches from the manufacturer and had them "branded" with their company name - Oberlin. These were pocket watches that were equipped with a chronograph (stop watch) function and pulsometer scale to enable accurate readings of pulse and heart rate. These watches were given as promotional gifts to doctors and pharmacists to help promote the Oberlin Pharmaceutical brand.
So unlike some other brands out there, we're not going to claim this as any sort of faux historical tie, but it is a pretty cool coincidence!