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One of my favourite watches is this LOV Précision, clean and simple, with lots of "je ne sais quoi"
It runs the ever faithful Cupillard 233, and hails from Villers-le-Lac. LOV was the brand name of the family business, Ets Hubert Lambert et Fils, whose workshops were on the rue Maréchal Foch. The original name of the village was Lac Ou Villers, hence LOV. LOV were recognised in the trade as being one of the better quality marques of the lower mid price range, and produced, as well as the various Précisions, a later varied range called Espadon (Swordfish), and the Aqua Sports range amongst others.
LOV traded successfully through the 1950's and 60's, still under family control, and a number of the company's promotional items can still be found, ranging from Buvards to football keyrings!
By the late 1960's, like so many of its contemporaries, LOV were suffering for their indifference to the market changes of the beginning of the quartz era, and were, like Herma, acquired by Marcel Rième's Cupillard-Rième, and incorporated into Finhor. Which after then including Esperanto, Sodexhor & Blind became Framelec in 1970
Over the next few years it all went from bad to worse, Framelec was taken over by the then owners of Jaz, then Matra, seemingly at the behest of the French Government took over and became involved in all aspects of the business, so by 1981 it looked like this:
According to Marcel Rième, he had become so disillusioned with the French government and with Matra and its dealings with Seiko that he resigned in October 1981. Within 3 years Framelec and its component parts had vanished in their original form forever.
As you may know I generally only have one watch of each brand, so here's some other LOVs you may come across:
