Calibre 490

Notes

The Longines 490 is based on the Election 875 movement. This movement was designed in the 1950s by Election. Tooling and rights to the movement was sold to Marvin who produced the movement as the 700 c.1960 and it was subsequently sold to Longines in the late 1960s. At this time as Longines was coming under increased pressure from the emergence of electronic movements along with other upheavals in the watch industry it looked to find existing calibres made by other companies that could be produced more inexpensively than its in-house calibres and help it maintain profitability.