An Introduction to Jump Hour Watches
Following the fantastic success of our recent event Exploring British Watch Design and our last Blog Post introducing watch design, we though it might be fun to dive into a popular but fairly unusual way to tell the time on a watch. The use of a jump hour, or displaying the hour using a rotating dial so only one numeral is visible at a time. The minutes are often displayed the traditional way using a hand, or sometimes another rotating disk. This simple change to one of the time telling features of the watch opens up endless possibilities for watch designers, and we'll now show you some of the bold and memorable designs from the last 100 years.
A Vintage Patek Philippe Watch from 1927 with a Jump Hour at the 12 O'Clock Position
The Original Jump Hour Watch
While this idea had been used in pocket watches dating back as far as the seventeenth century, an Austrian watchmaker called Josef Pallweber worked out how to get the dial to rotate precisely on the hour. This may seem trivial, but managing the power requirements for a disk are different to those from a hand, and all watch designers need to take this into account. For this reason, jump hour pocket watches made at this time IWC Schaffhausen but coped by others, were not as accurate as traditional models, which limited their appeal.
An Original IWC Pocket Watch designed by Josef Pallweber in the 1880s, with jump hour and minutes.
The Jump Hour meets Art Deco Design
Some of the most famous Jump hour designs can be found in the 1920s and 1920s, inspired by Art Deco design. The most famous is the Cartier Tank a Guichet, which follows the simple aspects of Art Deco design with perfectly proportioned windows to see the hour and minutes. This design was copied by many other brands at the time.
The Famous Cartier Tank A Guichet with the hours in one window and minutes in a curved window below. This is a reissue from the 1990s with the crown on the side. The original had the crown at the bottom of the case.
Modern Jump Hour Watches
One of the most successful luxury brands of the 21st century has an iconic watch that uses both jump hour and jump minutes to create a digital time display. The Lange & Sohne Zeitwerk is a very distinctive watch, and has proven very popular amongst watch lovers as it is so recognisable. This explanation of how it works underlines how much consideration needs to be taken for this mechanism to work accurately.
Other luxury watch brands have used the jump hour to create really outlandish designs, with technical or engineering inspiration. These watches attract a very niche customer, but have proven consistently popular.
The Lange & Sohne Zeitwerk Mesitersinger, with the digital display of hours and minutes. This watch is a minute repeater that uses the gongs and chimes visible on the dial to sound the time every fiteen minutes.
This Urwerk watch shows the time using two jumping mechanisms at the end of the case that rotate in one hour and five minute intervals.
The Urwerk Hours display in the UR-112 Watch.
At the affordable end of the watch world, modern brands have used the jump hour to create exciting and unusual designs, especially in the Microbrand community. British brand Mr. Jones uses an image-first design philosophy, as they want to find new ways of telling the time, and using a jump hour and sometimes jump minutes makes this much easier for their designers. It allows them to create some truly beautiful pieces, that while not necessarily easy to read, are interesting works of art for the wrist.
The Ascendant watch from Mr. Jones Watches. The jump hour is in a small window in the tree branch, and the minutes are read depending on the number of stars passing the 3 O'Clock position. This design is created using palladium plating on the underside of the crystal, which is highly unusual.
Earlier this year a very special jump hour watch was launched to celebrate the new Alliance of British Watch and Clockmakers, an organisation dedicated to building the art and craft of watchmaking in Great Britain. This collaboration between two brands, Fears Watches and Christopher Ward, created a large dress watch with a striking dial containing the jump hour at 12 O'clock. This limited edition was highly reviewed worldwide, showing the power of using this unusual design to attract attention to a brand while remaining consistent with their prior design language. Jump hours offer designers the chance to do something special.
The Fears x Christopher Ward Alliance Wristwatch with the Jump Hour at the 12 O'Clock position.
Conclusion
Unusual ways of telling the time allow watch designers the opportunity to explore watch designs that break the mould. These can be found at a range of different price points, and are often a great joy to wear as they provoke so much discussion, even amongst non-watch lovers! We at The Watch Collectors' Club encourage you to explore watch design more widely, and try on a jump hour watch next time you see one. You never know how much you might like it!
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