With a history dating back 266 years, Beyer Chronometrie is the world’s oldest watch store, but not for much longer: the store has been sold to Patek Philippe and will close at the end of the year. This turn of events echoes the sale of Bucherer to Rolex three years ago.

Come next year, the store with its prime location on Zurich’s posh Bahnhofstrasse will be replaced by an enlarged Patek Philippe boutique. The news was first reported by Swiss newspapers including Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) and Tages-Anzeiger.

The sale is perhaps not that surprising given the store’s longtime owner, René Beyer, passed away in 2025 without an heir. The business was passed onto Beyer’s sister, Muriel Zahn-Beyer, who has no children of her own either.

According to Ms Zahn-Beyer, speaking to the NZZ, the late René Beyer already planned for the sale prior to his death, having sold a minority stake in the business to Patek Philippe in 2024.

Patek Philippe and Beyer have long been partners; in fact, Beyer is also the world’s oldest Patek Philippe retailer, having started carrying the brand around 1842, just a few years after the watchmaker was established in 1839. As a consequence, Beyer was perhaps one of the watchmaker’s most significant retailers, despite having only one store.

With the takeover, the multi-brand section of the Beyer store will close, while its existing Patek Philippe boutique will be enlarged. This also means a third of Beyer’s current employees will be kept on to staff the expanded Patek Philippe boutique, which first opened in 2011. Notably, the Patek Philippe boutique run by Beyer was the brand’s first and only boutique in Switzerland run by a third-party retailer.

According to Tages-Anzeiger, the impressive watch museum now located in the basement of the Beyer store – which has been in its current spot for almost a century – is not part of the sale, and will most likely be relocated to another venue in Zurich.