Company

INSPIRED FROM “MISéRABLES”

It was in 1948 that Ferdinand Mettaz founded the Geneva workshop he named Selbaresim — a tribute to the circle of friends he kept at the time, « les Misérables », whose name he reversed to turn it into a brand. As the company grew, the name was naturally shortened to Selba — easier to carry and to pronounce in industrial circles. In 1960, the arrival of Michel Burkhalter marked a decisive turning point: with his ingenuity and instinct for mechanics, he played a determining role in the firm’s expansion by designing and deploying a fleet of machines specifically dedicated to glass machining — at the time a discipline of the future for watchmaking, optics and precision instrumentation. The company was incorporated as a société anonyme in 1980; Michel Burkhalter became a partner alongside Daniel Mettaz, the founder’s son, sealing the transition to a new generation.

Geneva firm since 1948

Day to day, Selba is a team of around fifteen women and men gathered around a fleet of high-precision machines and a know-how passed down from generation to generation. Profiled by the Tribune de Genève in its series dedicated to the canton’s industrial gems, the company produces — from its Versoix workshops — engraved glass plates that are exported worldwide. Photomasks on glass and on film, incremental and absolute encoder discs, optical linear rules, precision graduations, calibration plates, microscope reticles, high-resolution laser photoplotting up to 50,800 dpi, and the machining and bonding of glass, ceramics and polymers: the range is broad but the common thread remains constant — micron-level tolerance, dimensional stability, and optical quality. Selba serves the watchmaking, optics, microfluidics, micromechanics, robotics and medical industries, in Switzerland and internationally, in the tradition of excellence that has defined this Geneva firm since 1948.