Sinn

For the last 44 years everything at Sinn has revolved around high-quality mechanical watches. This brand’s history began in 1961 when pilot and flight instructor Helmut Sinn began to manufacture pilot’s watches under his own name in Frankfurt-Rödelheim.

These were exceptionally instrumentlike wristwatches and board clocks of high functionality, fulfilling the professional demands of pilots perfectly. He sold them directly from the factory without using any type of middleman, and he didn’t advertise either. High functionality,top-grade indestructible quality,and extreme cost-effectiveness quickly got around the pilot scene. And today these unique qualities remain typical of Frankfurt’s Sinn brand.

Sinn has long been an insider tip among fans of mechanical watches, for together with the renaissance of the mechanical wristwatch,interest in these special watches originating in Frankfurt also rose. Specialties of the house such as instrument-like chronographs and sports and diver’s watches were able to assert themselves in trade press comparison tests against often much more expensive competition bearing “bigger”names.

Despite all of the brand’success, this also turned out to be a phase of new beginnings: At the age of 78 the brand’s founder and name-giver sold  both the company and the rights to the brand to Dipl.-Ing.Lothar Schmidt in 1994. A native of the German state of Saarland, Schmidt had been proxy holder,production manager, and one of the developmental engineers of the noble Swiss brand IWC until that point. He provided his new company with competence and knowledge as well as experience in development, production,and the introduction of new technologies – decisive impulses for continuing development. A myriad of technical innovations that made the trade and a growing number of customers perk up their ears followed: An anti-reflective diver’s watch absolutely condensation-free, made of stainless steel that could reach any possible diving depth thanks to the HYDRO® technology; a valuable chronometer-chronograph encased in a newly developed 22-karat gold alloy making it hard as stainless steel; a chronometer containing magnetic field protection twenty times higher than the norm and a movement suspension system that is exceptionally shockproof; models with ideal protection against movement corrosion filled with inert gases and outfitted with an integrated dehumidifying capsule; the development of timepieces for the professional use of police and border patrols (EZM models); lubrication and tolerance technology that allows a mechanical watch to function at temperatures from –45 °C to +80 °C. Our model 303 KRISTALL withstood a fire and ice test in 1998 during the dog-sled race Yukon Quest taking place in the icy expanses of Canada and Alaska where temperatures of –40 °C are not rare.The model 203 ARKTIS followed suit in 1999. This diver’s chronograph passed its test in the Arctic Ocean with flying colors. One of the newest developments by Sinn is the DIAPAL technology, containing expressly chosen materials for the watch’s most important governing components so that they no longer need lubrication. This technology premiered in our anniversary model, the Frankfurt Finance Watch made of a white gold and palladium alloy, on the occasion of our company’s fortieth anniversary in the year 2001. Further models featuring DIAPAL technology are the new 756 DIAPAL and the Frankfurt Finance Alarm Watch, model 6066. 

Watch Community opinion (by www.watchfinder.com):

Sinn was one of the best-kept secrets among watch fanatics for years until about 2002, when the brand caught fire on the Internet. Widely perceived to be a new brand, Sinn has been making watches for professional use in Germany for almost 20 years. Stories abound about people flying to the Sinn factory in Germany and buying 20 or more watches, and then selling them to their collector friends and/or on eBay. Now Sinn is more widely available, and to their credit, prices are still low compared to the high quality. Popular models include the Sinn 356 pilot's chronograph, Sinn 956 Rallye chronograph, Sinn EZM models, Sinn 103, Sinn 144, and the Sinn 903 which is inspired by the famous Breitling Navitimer.