The modern mechanical watch is a marvel of human progress. Whether it's an expensive luxury watch with handmade parts or an affordable microbrand watch with a mass-market movement, both demonstrate the benefits of hundreds of years of innovation in technology and manufacturing processes. This week we will talk about how watchmaking has changed over the last 400 years, and in the next blog post we will talk about how modern watch manufacturing is done. We're focussing on this topic ahead of our visit to the new UK factory of Bremont Watches, where we will receive an exclusive and unique tour of a working watch factory. You can sign up for that event on Friday 10th February, here.

The first watches were small clocks, and the novelty of having a clock that was portable on a personal level emerged in the 16th century. When Queen Elizabeth I of England died in 1603 she was said to have owned 11 watches, which she may have worn on a bracelet attached to her clothes. These watches were all entirely manufactured by a single artist or craftsman. Very few survive and the makers of that time are little known. To make them they would have used skills similar to jewellery-making or locksmithing. 

Watchmaking from 1600 to 1800 is a story of continued and deliberate development. Various watchmakers were spread across Europe, including England, France, Germany and Switzerland. The development of the balance spring and then the lever escapement led to watches that were precise down to the minute. The first minute hands appeared on watches in the 16th century and transformed the usefulness of the watches. These technological developments led to specialisation, so different people and workshops became expert in making different parts of the watch. Some people made the springs to power the watch and run the escapement, and some made cases, dials, hands, or the wheels or gears in the movement. 

The crucial thing about this specialisation, similar to the development of modern manufacturing in other industries, is that it allowed mass production of similar parts. This was seen in France, but particularly in Switzerland after the arrival of Huguenot refugees fleeing persecution in France in the 17th century saw a large number settle in Geneva. Many of these refugees were skilled craftsmen in the areas of metalwork. This provided a massive boost to the Swiss watch industry at a perfect time. The strict religious leader John Calvin had recently banned the wearing of all jewellery and adornment in the city. Focus turned immediately to the production of fancy watches, which were still allowed to be worn and used. The Huguenots brought technological craftsmanship and the Genevans supplied the artistry, and Geneva leapt to the top of the European watchmaking trade. 

In the following century, the Swiss did something even more interesting; a system called the Éblissage was developed in the Swiss cantons of Neuchâtel and Geneva in the 1730s. This clarified the separation of different parts manufacture to different skilled workshops and made the assembly, casing and testing separate and more of a "manufacture" as we know them today. These parts workshops also took advantage of the long snowy winters in Switzerland where travel was difficult. Small workshops in the long Jura valley would make parts over winter and deliver them to Geneva in Spring for watch assembly to begin. 

The largest benefit of this system was that the separate parts manufacturers could innovate and improve their individual parts much faster than someone trying to do it all. This led to Swiss watches becoming the world leaders in quality, accuracy and reliability. 

This Swiss system did not lend itself to modernisation following the industrial revolution. Instead, the vast industrial powers of the UK, Germany and most of all the USA transformed watchmaking into the factory-led process it mostly is today. 

Famously, Henry Ford, the car maker who introduced the "production line" concept of mass manufacturing to large items in the early 20th century, was inspired by watchmakers such as Waltham, Elgin and others in the USA. They found ways to make pocket watches at huge scale. Similarly in the UK, larger manufacturers such as Fears were also selling millions of timepieces a year. The Swiss did not match this at this time as they still used a highly fragmented system of small workshops. 

Ingersoll, another US watch company, created a watch called the Yankee in 1892 that they sold in person for $1.50 and via a catalogue for $1. This started a boom in cheap watches for $1 and it's estimated that over the next 20 years, over 500 Million were sold. This was possible only thanks to large scale mass manufacturing. They were of low quality and not even designed to be repaired, and many even had paper dials.

One of the most interesting things that these industrial-scale watch producers had to do was conquer precision machining for such small parts, and it is the watchmaking industry we have to thank for the tools to do this. These tools were later used to make precise scientific instruments such as microscopes and measuring devices that changed the face of modern science. It was the need for smaller-than-a-millimetre sizing and precision in watchmaking that led to these possibilities. 

By the time of the First World War, the world was awash with low-cost pocket watches, and any man who could have would have owned and used one. They were produced in many countries across the world, and examples can be found from places such as Russia and Japan, as well as across Europe. For high-end watches it was still the case however that most watches were sold as a movement only, and a local jeweller would separately buy a case, and potentially the dial and hands, and assemble them for sale. Often the movement manufacturer was not even mentioned on the dial. Indeed, it was Rolex who really pushed hard for this (and then eventually made it mandatory) on their wristwatches in the 1920s.

The boom in men's wristwatch demand following the First World War changed everything again. Pioneering manufacturers of both luxury and mass-market watches used their brand name to sell the brand and by the 1930s the era of manufactured watches had truly arrived.

The Swiss catch up and everyone mechanises

Eventually, watchmakers in every country adopted the full benefits of mass manufacturing and making timepieces in large factories. Only the very high-end brands retained the skills to make every part by hand, and even those such as Patek Philippe embraced automation and high-tech machinery from the 1930s onwards. In our next Blog Post we will explore what happened in the 20th Century and what it means for how watches are made today.

We look at the first few centuries of watch making and manufacturing

A short History of How Watches are Made

We explore the early histroy of watch manufacturing.

If your work or personal life means that you need to quickly work out what time it is in a different time zone, a watch that displays multiple time zones can be a very useful one to have. I was reminded of how useful this function is on New Year’s Eve this year, when I was trying to contact friends around the world to wish them a “Happy New Year”. It took me a long time to work out what time it was in 8 different countries using google. If I’d had a world-timer watch, I would have been able to work it out instantly. There and then I decided that I would like to purchase a world-timer, but actually didn’t know much about their history. What follows is a fascinating short story that covers not just the development of wristwatches, but also how we measure time itself. 

What is a world-timer watch, and how does it work? 

A world-timer watch is a watch that displays all 24 main time-zones simultaneously. For example, if you are in London, you can instantly tell the time in New York, Mumbai, Moscow and Tokyo. Modern world-timers also let you quickly adjust the time-zone you are in and reflect the updated times of the cities. So, if you travel from London to New York, and still want to know the time in Moscow, Mumbai and London, a few quick presses of a button allow you to read the multiple time-zones on the dial. 

World-timers are quite simple to read, despite their complicated looking dials. The most common format has three displays that you need to read. An inner ring with 24 hours indicated on it, and the two outer rings. The inner of these two is called “home time” and the outer is called “local time”. 

In the photo below, you will see London is at the top of the inner ring, and the time is 10.10am. London is set to “home time”. If you want to know the time in Moscow, locate it on the outer “local time” ring. You can see that the 24-hour ring has a little arrow pointing at Moscow a little after the number 13. This reflects that in Moscow, the time is 13.10pm. Another example is Tokyo, which has the number 19 pointing at it on the 24-hour ring. This denotes that the time in Tokyo is 19.10, when it is 10.10 in London. With this type of world-timer, you can click the button, or pusher on the side of the case to change “home time”. 

World-timer watches are a relatively modern invention. They required one very important thing to be able to exist – a globally agreed reference point for time, or more specifically for longitude. 

Before the mid 19th Century, time was calculated relatively inaccurately by anyone that needed to keep to a schedule. This caused all sorts of problems. For example, it was incredibly difficult to catch a train on time, because there was a high likelihood that the train company thought it was a different time to you. In the United States, railway timetables had conversion charts with over 100 different times – for example, it might be 12.14PM in Albany, New York, whilst in it was 12.26PM in Salem Massachusetts.

British railways were some of the first to adopt a standardised time, called Greenwich Meantime, in 1847. The rest of England followed in 1880, when Greenwich Meantime became the legal time in England. 

Around the same time, the Chief Engineer of the Canadian Pacific Railway, Sandford Flemming, published a memoir that advocated a standard 24-hour global time system. This quickly gained international recognition. In 1884, the International Meridian Conference determined that Greenwich Meantime would be adopted as a standard global time standard. 

At roughly the same time, a Swiss watchmaker called Emmanuel Cottier was approached to design a clock that could tell the time in multiple time-zones at the same time. He was unsuccessful, but his attempts inspired his son, Louis Cottier, who was an exceptionally talented young watchmaker, to complete his father’s work. 

In 1931, Louis Cottier completed his “heures universelles” mechanism, and the world-timer was born. Wristwatches weren’t that common in the early 1930s, so the first world-timers were pocket watches. However, trends changed and in 1937, Patek Philippe used Cottier’s “heures universelles” movement to launch a series of world-timer wrist-watches. The most famous early production world-timer is the Ref 1415 picture below. 

The system he designed is still in use by most modern world-timers. The mechanism explained earlier is almost identical to Cottier’s system. 

You can read a longer-history of Patek Philippe World-timers here.

There are some problems with the 24-hour world-timer in the modern world. There are now 37 time zones, and some of them don’t comprise a full hour. For example, India is 5.5 hours ahead of Greenwich Meantime. Additionally, world-timer watches can’t calculate daylight savings time – so there is a big portion of the year where the wearer needs to manually adjust for an additional hour in some time zones. 

World-timers are beautiful and interesting watches, and are worth going to try on in your local store. Many high-end brands, particularly Patek Philippe and Breguet, make fantastic world-timer watches with beautiful and intricate dials.

However, many more accessible brands are now making great world-timers. Omega, Nomos, Frederique Constant and Christopher Ward are just some of the brands making them at more affordable prices. 

As with all watches, world-timers are best seen in person. Have a look at our events page and sign up for an event to see a world-timer in real-life. 

The Watch Collectors' Club runs regular events where we teach members a little about watches, watchmakers, watch

A club for everyone who likes 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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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!

We look at different kinds of jump hour and jumping hour watches

Introduction to Jump Hour Watches

We explain the jump hour complication and look at unsual watch designs that use it.

Since we started The Watch Collectors' Club we've found that the number one thing most people are interested in is the look and feel of their watch. Next comes the history heritage and status of the brands, and then comes the technology inside the case. While this may not surprise many, it means that our events have been mostly focussing on the looks of a watch and the brand or model history, as well as helping people understand how to buy and sell the watches they want. 

One often wonders where watch designers start, and the simplest answer to this is style. Over and over again we see watch brands adopt a distinctive style, either of their own or in the traditions of a type of watch (such as a Dive watch or Pilot's Watch) and then develop their individual ideas from there. Of course, the designer has to decide on what functions they want the watch to have, and then fit them into the required size. They also need to decide very early on what the time display will be, whether it will use hands or another mechanism, and what type of dial to use and how to make it.

We once spoke to a legendary watchmaker, Kari Voutilainen and he said "It all starts with the dial", so want to reiterate that point, as the first question a designer has to answer is how the functions of the watch will be displayed.

There are an enormous number of both styles and types of watches. Here is an example, one common type of watch is a chronograph, like the Rolex Cosmograph Daytona. It is a steel sports watch, with a bezel that helps make calculations based on the stopwatch function that makes it a chronograph. It also has a distinct style, it is large and chunky and has a high level of water resistance to 100m. It is a serious-looking watch that looks like many other Rolexes, and comes from a long line of previous models with the same name. Everyone can see what it is, and while there are dial and case material variations, plus some gem-set models, the style is distinctly Rolex. 

Another chronograph, one made by British brand Studio Underdog, is completely different, it is colourful and playful by design, and as the first watch from a new company there was no heritage to draw on. It is instead themed on different things, including fruit, but mainly focused on colour combinations. It still has subdials and pushers, or buttons on the side to work the chronograph function, but the designer has used completely different aspects of each. The case is also thinner and there is no bezel. 

With these two examples, we can see that designers are working with totally different styles, but both had to start by thinking about how to represent the chronograph function of the watch.

To further illustrate the point, we can use a watch that tells the time without using hands. In this example from Mr. Jones Watches, the hour is displayed in a window within the branches of the tree, and the minutes are indicated by different arrangements of stars as displayed at the 3 o'clock position. This style of watch is unusual and comes from a brand that starts by trying to think of ways to tell the time with an image that hasn't been done before. This is truly design-led watchmaking

How does a designer turn a design into a watch?

A designer today has more options than ever before to make a new watch a reality, whether it is something simple, fun and affordable or extremely complicated and expensive. Whatever they make they need to work out how it is going to be made, and where. If a watch is going to be Swiss Made, then 60% of the components must be made in Switzerland and it must be assembled there. If it is going to say it is British made, then it must be assembled in Britain, such as those from Mr. Jones watches. The designer also must work out the price of the assembly and how that relates to the expected selling price. 

Fortunately, today, there are many suppliers and factories that can do a whole range of things, and in some cases, simply produce an entire watch with a limited amount of additional help needed other than quality control. This has allowed startup watch brands to flourish, to the benefit of watch lovers everywhere who want to take a chance on something different. For established brands, they already have factories and a supply chain, but need to decide how complicated to make the movement and cases to meet the price point their customers expect.

Like any area of design, the watch world is subject to fashion. We see this in the popularity of watch styles, the size of watches, materials used, and many other aspects of watch design. Right now, it is clear that watches are getting smaller again, and that brands are more confident selling watches in a range of sizes, including under 40mm diameter. We are also seeing lots more colour being used, on both classic models and new entrants. Finally, we continue to see the adoption and use of interesting materials like Titanium, Bronze, or Carbon Fibre for cases. There also remains a trend to create modern watches that reissue historic models or are very similar to them. We expect all of these trends to continue to the benefit of watch lovers who gain more variety from both new and established brands. 

The Watch Collectors' Club exists to help you explore the watch world through our events and our attempts to help explain how things happen and why watch companies do the things they do. We hope interviews with designers at our events and on our YouTube Channel will further your insight into what you like about watch design. If you have any questions about watch design or suggestions for related topics we could cover please do not hesitate to ask us!

How are watches designed? Where do watch designers start?

An Intorduction to Watch Design

We explore how watches are designed and how designers get started

To celebrate our Event this week focussing on the Rolex Submariner, we thought we would highlight a few of the remarkable uses of this famous watch. Its position in the watch world is almost unmatched, as a timepiece that can serve as a tough dive watch under the most extreme conditions, and as a status symbol for the so-called "Desk-Diver" who will never go near the ocean. The fact that so many have been produced means that it is one of the most widely collected watches. Here are some Submariner stories that highlight the wide range of uses it's been put to in the 70 years since its introduction.

How did James Bond come to be wearing a Rolex Submariner?

James Bond was first played by British Actor Sean Connery, and while it is mentioned in the book Casino Royale that Bond wears a Rolex, and it is known that the author and creator of James Bond, Ian Fleming, owned an Oyster Perpetual, Bond wears a Submariner in the 1962 film Dr. No. It's a Reference 6538 and it's worn for the first three films.

Legend has it that the film's producer, Cubby Broccoli, was unable to rent a Rolex for Bond to wear in the first film, Dr No, so he took his personal watch off his wrist and gave it to Sean Connery. The connection with James Bond and the scarcity of this watch have turned this model into a grail for many watch collectors. We've written more widely about the watches of James Bond here.

Submariners were one of only two watches good enough for The Royal Navy Clearance Operators

In the late 1950s, The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom put out a request for submissions for watches to equip it's top dive teams, who are specialists in underwater bomb clearance missions and other salvage operations. Only two watches qualified; the Rolex Submariner and the Omega Seamaster Professional 300.

The Royal Navy went on to order and issue approximately 1300 watches, making good examples of these the most valuable of all vintage Submariners. Their active use meant that they were repaired and serviced often, and when people left the Navy they were often advised to replace the Navy-specific parts such as the dial, hands and caseback to make them more valuable. Since the modern collector values original condition and authentic parts above all else, this was awful advice!

These are the specifications of a Military Submariner, or "MilSub" for short:

Stainless steel case, with water resistance of 200 metres. Black dial with circle T added to signify Tritium as the source of luminous. Screw down crown. Earlier models had a diamond-shaped hour hand, with later models having the more easily recognised (to Rolex owners, at least) Mercedes hour hand. The steel case had fixed bars to lessen the danger of losing the watch through spring bar failure.

Case-back engraved with the Royal Navy stores numbers 0552/923-7697, broad-arrow below (signifying government property), and then below that an issue number and issue year. Eg 175/70, signifying watch number 175 of 1970.

The above modifications were made to the civilian 5513 before the watches left the Rolex factory.

The Solid Gold Submariner is a Real Dive Watch

Rolex launched the solid gold Submariner in 1969, supposedly in response to demand from the clients of Authorised Dealers in the Mediterranean. This watch solidified Rolex's reputation as a status symbol, as making a tool watch that can perform even the deepest dives functional and out of Solid Gold is quite a ridiculous thing to do, but it has been popular ever since its launch.

One experience diver used his for over 40 years, including on some world record-breaking dives over 100m deep. The best story from Bret Gilliam is this close encounter with a Great White Shark, courtesy of a wonderful article on Hodinkee of the man's career:

Recounting the experience, Gilliam tells me that while his eyes were trained on the viewfinder of his camera, a massive Great White "suddenly turned and bit the cage right next to me, and then went into a bit of a rage and started thrashing around trying to get at me. I pulled my camera back and dropped back into the cage, but not before the shark violently impacted the cage again and my left arm was knocked sharply into the bars, causing a chip in the Rolex's bezel."

The same article contains this extraordinary story from famous Scuba Diving Pioneer Dick Anderson, who somehow persuaded Rolex to make him a gold watch using his own gold...

These are just three of the areas where the Submariner has proven an extraordinary partner to interesting people doing amazing things. There are many stories out there, especially from divers who relied on their Submariners through the most dangerous escapades. You can find them linked from personal websites such as this from Diving Watch and the confusing but massive source of stories that is Jake's Rolex Magazine. We hope you've enjoyed learning more about the Submariner, and if you'd like more like this join one of our online events, our next is on the Rolex Daytona and can be found on our Watch Events page.

Some entertaining stories to help you explore the history of the Rolex Submariner

Rolex Submariner Stories and Uses

To celebrate our Rolex Submariner Event, we bring you a few interesting examples of the Submariner's many uses.

A few fun stories about the Rolex Submariner

Join The Watch Collectors' Club on Thursday July 13th to explore Sustainability in Watchmaking with Oris at their South Molton Street Boutique in London. Oris is a family-owned company who have recently put sustainability initiatives at the top of their near term business plan. At this event you will learn all about how they are improving the sustainability of their company and their watchmaking. You will also see the watches that are the result of their partnership initiatives, including the Oris Aquis Date Upcycle. 

Expect warm boutique hospitality, three short talks to help you understand more about Oris and sustainable watch manufacturing, and the chance to try on watches from across their range. 

We learn abour Oris' Sustainability and Social Impact Initiatives at their South Molton Street Branch

Learn about sustainability in watchmaking and the watch industry with Oris and The Watch Collectors' Club

Exploring Sustainability in Watchmaking with Oris

Join The Watch Collectors' Club on Tuesday 4th July from 6:00PM for an evening at TAG Heuer's flagship London boutique on Oxford Street to explore the Carrera Range. The newly-renovated boutique will provide their usual excellent hospitality, you'll hear two short talks to help you learn more about the watch world, and you'll meet loads of fellow watch lovers. 

The focus of the evening will be the famous Carrera, and in the week of the UK Grand Prix we will highlight TAG Heuer's long legacy of motorsport history. You'll get to try on the whole range, and of course, also see the rest of the Tag watches in the catalogue. 

Expect a fun time with lots of super sporty watches and other watch enthusiasts. Please sign up below to come along. 

Join us at Tag's Flagship boutique on London's Oxford Street to learn more about the Carrera range.

Explore the Tag Heuer Carrera with The Watch Collectors' Club

The Watch Collectors' Club at Tag Heuer Oxford Street

Join us for a watch event run solely for women. On Thursday 20th June from 6:30PM we'll meet in a Central London wine bar for a fantastic evening of watches and talks.

As the watch industry continues to focus their marketing and products primarily on men, the number of women attending our events is increasing with each month.

This event will bring together women who are new to the world of watches, and those who already collect watches with the aim of learning from one another.

The event is hosted in a private area of a central London wine bar, and the event will follow our inclusive, informative and fun structure.

If you have a watch or two to bring along please do. We are interested in all types of watches – from Casios all the way to complicated Swiss watches, and everywhere in-between.

A watch meetup solely for Ladies in Central London. Meet other female watch enthusiasts with The WCC

Watch meetup for women, ladies' watch meetup, femal watch enthusiasts

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