Groh+Ripp: loved by the best in watchmaking

10:10 1st JSH® PRINT MATERIALS OPINION SUPPLIERS

Groh+Ripp: loved by the best in watchmaking

8 Jun, 10:10

Temps de lecture : 2 minutes

Over the past 20 years, the watchmaking industry has invested a lot of energy in vertical integration. However, even today, it still depends on specialists in many cases, some of whom are based outside Switzerland. One such specialist is the family-owned company Groh & Ripp à Idar-Oberstein.

Timm Delfs Loyal journalist at the Journal Suisse d’Horlogerie JSH
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Idar-Oberstein, a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Groh & Ripp is one of the most renowned gemstone cutting companies. This family-run SME dates back to an agate cutting workshop founded in 1953 by Theo Groh in Rhaunen, about 20 km north of Idar-Oberstein. He had a daughter, Stefanie, who married Bernd Willi Ripp. The latter joined his father-in-law’s company in 1973.

Under the leadership of Stefanie and Bernd Willi Ripp, the company relocated to Idar-Oberstein in 1985. With around 50 employees, including Sandra since 1996 and Nicole since 2003, the founder’s granddaughters, and now with the recent arrival of Richard Brunk, Sandra Ripp’s son, the company is already on the verge of entering its fourth generation…

Sandra Ripp: Notre maison est assise sur des trésors que l’on ne peut plus acheter nulle part car les gisements sont souvent épuisés»

Sandra Ripp: ‘We deliver what we call semi-finished products. These can be stone bases with or without holes. The finishing of the dials with decals, apliques, etc. is done by our customers, the dial manufacturers. Our production includes dials, but also gemstone components such as pushers, cases, etc.’

Timm Delfs: “Des pierres, du savoir-faire”

Ce journaliste indépendant et spécialisé, à l’aise en anglais et en allemand, est né et réside à Bâle. Il distille la bonne parole horlogère dans les institutionnels NZZ am Sonntag, NZZ, Bilanz, Armbanduhren, Horological Journal et Journal suisse d’horlogerie JSH avec lequel il collabore depuis les années 1990. Ancien prof d’anglais et d’italien, il est aussi publié dans la Basler Zeitung et dans les revues privées de Beyer à Zurich et Huber à Vaduz.
Pour l'édition 2024-2025 (hiver-printemps) du JSH, Timm Delfs est allé à la rencontre de Groh+Ripp, une entreprise familiale fidèle au Journal Suisse d’Horlogerie JSH et aux marques horlogères suisses: «Aujourd’hui, Idar-Oberstein est le seul endroit au monde où toutes les pierres précieuses existantes sont taillées et commercialisées» m'explique-t-il.
À lire prochainement son article «L'horlogerie d'excellence» éprise de Groh+Ripp paru dans l'édition JSH fin 2025-printemps 2025

Groh+Ripp (Official)

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✍ Joel A. Grandjean

Chief editor & publisher of the online watch magazine "Swiss Watch Passport® (by JSH®)" and of the Swiss watch journal JSH® (founded in 1876). Member of Impressum, PressTourim and Club Suisse de la Presse, this Ivory Coast-born Swiss, descendant of a family of watchmakers, co-founded the magazines Montres Passion & Uhren Welt at Ringier in 1993 with Kenan Tegin, as well as the Prix Montre de l'Année. Founded in 2005, his press agency TàG Press +41 contributes to some twenty media. These include Journal Suisse d'Horlogerie (2008-2014), Heure Suisse/Schweiz and Année Horlogère, F/D/E (2011-2014), Watchonista.com (2013-2019). In 2019, he founded and chaired "JSH Archives & Patrimoine" to relaunch the Swiss watchmaking journal JSH. Then in 2021, he built on his very first editorial venture, the "bloghorloger.ch" founded in 2003, to come back online with the Swiss Watch Passport® (by JSH®). Joël A. Grandjean is a member of the SSC, the Swiss Society of Chronometry, and of the jury of the Prix Gaïa, aka the "Nobel of watchmaking" awarded since 1992 by the MIH, Le Musée International de l'Horlogerie in La Chaux-de-Fonds.

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