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

Women's Watch Meetup June 2023 from The WCC

Educational

Check out our educational articles about different types of watches

Educational Category

Here at The Watch Collectors' Club, we want to help you explore the watch world, and one of the most fun things to look at is unusual watch functions, also known as complications. We all know that many modern mechanical watches have functions on top of telling the time, and enthusiasts enjoy the different designs found to implement them, the careful craftsmanship required to make them work, and the engineering required to fit multiple functions into one mechanical movement. You may know of the common functions like the Date, or Calendar Functions, and the various types of Chronograph, but there are some really unusual ones we'd like to highlight. Read on for a list of some of the most unusual complications ever tried.

The Usual Suspects - common watch functions

Many people love it when their mechanical watch has an additional function even if they don't ever intend to use it. This explains the widespread popularity of chronographs, or stopwatches of different kinds, moonphases, different kinds of calendar watch, and even mechanical alarm watches. At the high end, we often find watches with more elaborate calendars that are perpetual, which means they can automatically account for a leap year. Many brands make all of these functions, but there are some complications that are much more rare.

Five Unusual Complications (or Functions)

Many watch brands have sponsored professional golfers for years without seeing the need to help them count their golf score while playing, but Hublot decided this fun and actually quite helpful movement addition should be attempted for their Big  Bang Unico range of sports watches. It counts the score on each hole the total score and the number of holes played. The design is straightforward and it has three bulky pushers to make it all easy to use with a golf glove on. I love this watch, it's pricey as they put it in cases made of fancy materials, but it is useful and well-designed.

Given the extremely large number of diving watches produced since the first couple were launched in 1953, the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms and the Rolex Submariner, you would think that many manufacturers would have rushed to include a handy tool showing the diver how deep they were into their watches. In fact, it's hard to do well, not least because it involves having a hole in the case! The water enters a small internal reservoir and pushes a counter to the required indicator. On the IWC Deep Three it even shows the deepest depth achieved. Oris also have made a few depth gauge watches in the past. It's a technically tricky and fun addition to any dive watch.

A very small number of watches have had a temperature function over the years. It's quite complicated to do as you need to connect a very sensitive gauge to a small part that expands and contracts within the watch. It's a clever and interesting dial differentiation, but probably a low level of accuracy that limits its usefulness, it's a fun function very rarely found.

An Altimeter tells you how high you are above mean sea level, and is crucial for pilots and mountaineers. Mechanical altimeters were the norm up until the 1960s, but very rarely did they feature on a wrist watch. Today they are equally unusual, but Oris maintain one in their range of Pilot's watches. They work by measuring air pressure and displaying it on a scale.

The tides move with the moon, and every part of every coastline on earth has different tides in terms of height due to the shape of the coast and the depth of the water, however the times of high and low tide can be calculated with accuracy forever into the future. These can then be modelled on a watch so long as you set it to the correct high tide time at the location you are interested in. Various watches have featured a tide timer, also known as a Solargraph, and today it seen as a luxury complication featured in those watches associated with sailing and yachting.

Another area of High Horology where watch makers make incredibly complicated mechanical features is in the realm of watches that can make sounds for specific purposes. Chiming watches can sound the time on demand, or sound the time at a specific interval, such as on the hour. These are worth investigating in a separate Blog Post, which we will write in the future. They are very expensive to make and only usually feature in very fancy watches, yet British Brand Christopher Ward recently made a new chiming watch that chimes every hour for a more accessible price. It is designed to show off the chiming mechanism, where a hammer bangs on a metal gong on the dial side of the watch. It is called the Bel Canto and may be the start of a new era of sounding watch complications.

There are many watch functions and complications and it is fun to seek out the more unusual models as well as marvel at the range of designs to implement them. We at The Watch Collectors' Club love exploring the huge variety of different kinds of watch, and hope to help you do it easily and by learning from others. If there are any complications you would like us to cover in more detail, please let us know via email or on Social Media, and come along to one of our online or in-person watch events to share your thoughts with us!

We explore and explains some rare and unusual watch complications.

Unusual Watch Functions

We explore rare and unusal functions found in mechanical watches.

This week you may have seen a lot of publicity about new watch releases, especially from big watch world names like Rolex, Patek Philippe and Grand Seiko. It's because the world's most important watch fair is happening in Geneva this week. It's called Watches & wonders and this Blog Post will tell you all about what it's for, where it came from, and why it happens. 

It's the largest trade show for watches in the world. It runs for a whole week in a large exhibition and conference centre in Geneva. It is a place for watch brands to show their timepieces to journalists, retail buyers, wholesalers, and VIP clients. As a result, many watch brands choose to use the show to introduce their new models every year. This is a very traditional way of doing things, dating from the past when travel was hard and the internet didn't exist, and so all of these industry participants were only in Switzerland at the same time once a year, for this show. Many other brands choose to release their new releases throughout the year, however the largest and most famous luxury brand, Rolex, always announces their new releases on the first morning of this show. The High Horology brand Patek Philippe also does this, and this year most participants have launched new models at the show, even if they have also released watches at other times (Tag Heuer, in particular, this year).

Just like other watch shows all over the world, the main thing to do is look at watches and try them on. Brands build big displays to represent themselves and inform the attendees about their watch ranges, technology, craftsmanship, and so on. This show is the largest worldwide, so the effort and expense put in by the brands are high, and the luxury status of many brands that participate means they build fantastic installations. This is different to watch shows elsewhere which are smaller scale, and brands may simply take a table and some cabinets to display their timepieces. The intent of both types of show is the same; to get watches in front of potential buyers and help everyone learn more about the watches and what the brands are trying to do. 

What's the history of Watches and Wonders? 

The history of this watch show is surprisingly full of controversy for such a luxury product and its location in a conservative country like Switzerland. For many decades the largest watch show was run in Basel, starting out as the Basel Watches and Jewellery fair in 1917. It grew quickly through the 1920s and ran regularly up until 2018, and was called Baselworld. Watch brands began to complain that they were not being treated well and in 2019 and 2020 a large number of famous brands pulled out, including those owned by Swatch Group and the watch brands of the Richemont Group. The handling of the show cancellation due to the Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020 was the final problem for Baselworld, and it has not been held since then. 

An alternative show had been running in Geneva since the early 1990s, featuring smaller brands who did not want to compete for attention in Basel. This was known as SIHH, which stands for Salon International de la Haute Horologie, and ran up until 2020 when it was rebranded as Watches and Wonders. This ran as a small online festival due to the Coronavirus Lockdowns and travel bans that prevented regular conferences and shows that year.

Since the end of the Coronavirus restrictions, the show has become the premier Swiss Watch Show, occupying the same slot in the calendar that Baswelworld used to hold, and run by an organising committee comprised of representatives of different watch brands. Overseeing the Foundation that runs it is a board chaired by the CEO of Rolex, Jean-Frederic Dufour and Emmanuel Perrin, Head of Specialist Watchmakers for Richemont Group. Since the leadership is provided by senior executives from competing watch companies, it ensures that the foundation will only produce watch fairs and shows that suit the large luxury brands, guaranteeing the quality of experience they are looking for every year. 

2023 is a significant year as the Watches and Wonders show has grown to 48 presenting brands, runs for a full week, and most significantly has two public days on the final weekend. The public will get to see the huge stands built by the brands, hear presentations from top industry participants, and see all the marketing and educational materials. Many watch lovers are excited, and this year the city of Geneva is also putting on a big party on the Thursday evening in the streets surrounding most of the watch boutiques. Overall, it's a fun celebration of the luxury segment of the industry right in the middle of its home town. The chance to see so many watches and meet other watch enthusiasts is one that excites many watch lovers.

The Watch Collectors' Club believe that the more watch events there are, the better off everyone is. We encourage the growth and success of Watches and Wonders and hope the industry can continue to invite more participants and highlight some of the world's finest watches. We also hope to run events at or alongside the show in future, so make sure you keep following us for news on that front in 2024 and beyond.

We explain the watches and wonders watch show in Geneva, the history and benefits of going.

What is Watches and Wonders?

We look into the world's most important watch show, where it came form, what it is and why people go.

Watchmakers and brands are constantly looking to bring something new to their catalogue. This means they often look to celebrate historic milestones in their past with anniversaries in the present. To do this they create special one-off watches to celebrate the anniversary of something, such as the year the watch was launched. They can also commemorate famous events connected to a watch, or simply broader anniversaries of the company or something connected to the company. We are not talking about watches bought as an anniversary gift for someone, but a watch that celebrates an anniversary important to the watch brand. This year (2023) contains many anniversaries of important watches, including Casio G-Shock, Swatch, Blancpain and even Rolex, who have never yet made an anniversary model, but who knows if this year is a first?

Anniversary watches often celebrate the anniversary of the company that makes them. Patek Phillippe, the high-end Swiss Manufacturer has celebrated their company founding date repeatedly, producing a limited edition timepiece for their 150th Anniversary in 1989, and in 2014 they introduced their most complicated wristwatch in production, the Grandmaster Chime for their 175th Anniversary. It has 21 different functions and in order to order one you have to pass an interview with the company in Geneva. To get that interview you have to already be a really big client. They even made pop star Ed Sheeran have an interview (yes really!). 

Another great example of a series of famous anniversary watches is the Omega Speedmaster range. They have created a very large number to commemorate anniversaries of different versions of the Apollo space missions for which they are most famously associated with, being the first watch on the moon and the first watch on a long spacewalk. It's quite entertaining to see just how many special edition Omega Speedmasters there are, but this large number is great for collectors as there are some very cool dial designs. Omega has produced a new limited edition celebrating the Apollo XI mission that landed on the moon every five years since the 20th anniversary in 1989, so that's seven just for one mission! 

50th Anniversaries are a very common reason for watch brands to celebrate their historic models. The Jaeger LeCoultre Polaris dive watch relaunch on its fiftieth anniversary was a particularly well-received highlight of a popular function, the alarm, in the very stylish dive watch design. The range is still doing very well for them today. 

2023 sees many watch models have their 70th anniversary, including two of the most important and famous dive watches of all time; the Rolex submariner and the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms. Rolex does not do "anniversary watches" but the world is eagerly anticipating their new models for the year to see if they commemorate the Submariner's first year of production in 1953. Luxury brand Blancpain has already released their new version of their famous Dive watch, the Fifty Fathoms, with an interesting new complication, a three-hour timer for divers using high-tech rebreather technology. This fun update is the latest addition to their very popular (but also very large and expensive) dive watch range.

Some brands celebrate the anniversaries of their own collaborations, including Patek Philippe. At the end of 2021 they created what is probably the most hyped watch ever to celebrate the Anniversary of their relationship with US Jewellery Retailer Tiffany & Co., a version of their Nautilus model with a Tiffany Blue dial.

Even young brands can create anniversary watches. The British watch brand William Wood, which makes firefighting-themed watches, used its five-year anniversary to create and sell a brand new watch for charity. This auction was a great success and the watch is truly unique, in both colour and dial design.

Anniversary watches are and interesting and quite common way for brands to dream up new versions of past classics. If there is a  brand or watch model that you particularly love it is worth searching for any anniversary models to see if they have interesting designs. It's also worth noting any coming up that you might want to reserve buying power for! Anniversaries are a fun and interesting discussion point for collectors of all kinds. Keep your eyes open at this year's Watches and Wonders watch show at the end of March for any interesting ones to go alongside the Blancpain. 

We explain anniversary watches and special watches made for anniversaries

What are Anniversary Watches?

We explore the watches brand use to celebrate significant historic anniversaries.

Many watch brands talk about the “finishing” of their watches, but what does that mean? Simply, it means the decoration applied to part of a watch. High horology brands talk a lot about their fine finishing, often applied to the case, hands, and movement. A previous blog explored the finishing that you can find on watch dials. 

This blog will briefly explore the various type of movement finishing that watch brands use for their movements.

All watches have movements. Some of these are very simple, and some are very complicated. Some are powered by quartz movements, whilst others are automatic. There are lots of ways in which movements can differ. How a manufacturer finishes the movement is just another one. 

Finishing is simply decoration of the movement. Sometimes manufacturers just use simple finishing, usually completed by a machine, to keep costs down. Other manufacturers might employ highly-skilled watchmakers to finish movements by hand. 

The way in which a watch manufacturer finishes a watch usually reflects the quality of the watch. Really high quality and expensive watches will often have movements finished with a variety of patterns, whilst cheaper watches will have simpler movement finishing. There are obviously some exceptions to this where cheaper watches have really beautiful movements.  

 A simple way to finish a movement is to polish it. It is unlikely that the whole movement will be polished, but some of the component parts might be. The bridge is a part that is commonly polished. 

Some watchmakers will spend a huge amount of time polishing parts of the movement by hand until they have a mirror-finish. This is very striking and requires a lot skill to achieve. Grand Seiko watches often have mirror-finished components to their movements, as you can see in the image below. This type of polishing is called Some polishers are able to create an effect called black-polish. This is achieved when metal is polished to such an extent that it appears black. It is very impressive to see!  

The opposite to polishing is graining, or brushing a movement. Like dragging a rake through sand, a machine with a sharp edge is dragged over the metal. This leaves it with tiny etches, giving the metal a matte finish. The grain is often in a straight line, however, there are various patterns that watchmakers might grain or brush a movement in, such as circular or Geneva stripes. 

Watchmakers achieve another matte effect by sandblasting the movement. This involves blasting compressed air and sand against the metal in order to cover it with lots of tiny craters. This is a very smart finish when combined with polished components. 

Cotes de Geneve, or the Geneva stripes, are a high-end brushed finished that you often see on watch movements through crystal case-backs. To create the effect, the watchmaker either uses a lathe, or a rectifying rule (a bit like the arm of a turntable). This is incredibly difficult to execute cleanly and evenly, so this finish is mostly used on expensive watches. It is also a useful finish, as it hides any marks on the movement, and traps small particles of dust.

Like Cotes de Geneve, perlage is a difficult effect to achieve. The watchmaker uses a rotating head, pressing it onto the metal to create an overlapping pattern of circles on the movement. It is very difficult to achieve a consistent pattern across the movement, so this finishing is often only used on expensive watches. 

Anglage, chamfering, or bevelling the edge of a movement component all mean the same thing. It means to polish the edge of a component, typically on a 45degree angle, to stop the edge of the component breaking off and damaging the movement. The top of a bevelled component is usually brushed in contrast to the polished, sloping sides. See picture below.

Guilloche is one of the most difficult movement finishes to achieve. It involves carving extremely precise patterns into the metal using a rose engine lathe. The lathe operator has to been incredibly skilled to achieve a consistent pattern. The process needs to be completed perfectly first time – so it is only used on the most expensive watch movements. 

At The Watch Collectors’ Club, we don’t have a favourite movement finish. We enjoy seeing the wide variety of finishes that watchmakers use to decorate the movements they put into their watches. They highlight the talent of watchmakers, and the pride that manufacturers take in the quality of their engineering. The best way to see some of the different movement finishes is to come to one of our events. 

The Different Finishes On Watch Movements

Our last Blog Post looked at the history of Watch Manufacturing, and we hope it piqued your interest in the long history of horology. There are many excellent books on the subject that we would be happy to recommend. The story of watch manufacturing in the Twentieth century is a fairly straightforward one of modernisation, but the details of how complex and varied it is today are of great interest to many watch owners. This week's post will try to outline some of the details, but much more can be found online or even by visiting a watch "manufacture" as they are known. The Watch Collectors' Club is very excited to be visiting a modern watch factory on February 10th 2023, and there are still spaces available for those who want to join us; details can be found on our Events page.

The Modernisation and Mechanisation of Watchmaking

Watchmaking is a conservative industry, but the constant demand for low priced watches led watch companies to find ever more ways to incorporate mass production techniques in the same way as other industries. The largest amount of push back against machine manufacture of parts was from luxury watch brands, and there are interesting statements from the likes of Henry Stern, who ran the luxury watchmaker Patek Philippe in the 1930s - 50s. He said the following:

“Everything that a hand can do better than a machine, we will do. But when machines can assist the work of a person, we will not adhere blindly to tradition.”

Like in many other industries, the real pioneers of low-cost watch manufacturing arose in Asia, namely the two companies Seiko and Citizen, who built companies capable of producing huge volumes of low-cost mechanical movements. For example, Citizen Group own the manufacturer Miyota, which has produced over 2 Billion quartz movements over the last 40 years. These numbers are only made possible by fully automated manufacturing. Today, watch parts and movements are made in China, Malaysia, and Japan, with assembly also taking place in those countries for movements found in a huge number of brands, large and small.

While the Twentieth Century saw a huge amount of turmoil in the Swiss Watch Industry, including the period of the so-called "Quartz Crisis" in the 1970s, the country remains a watch industry powerhouse. There are manufacturers large and small making everything separately and together: for example, Rolex do almost everything themselves, from smelting their own steel to making their own hands and dials, before assembling and testing the whole watches in their factory in the Les Acacias area of Geneva in Switzerland. However, for every part of a modern watch, there are independent suppliers large and small. There are companies that only make the gears or wheels of the movements, those that specialise in hands or dials, and workshops that create the complications that sit on top of base movements and provide functions like a chronograph, stopwatch, or calendar. 

Some of these parts suppliers are famous in their own right, thanks to important innovations, interesting features they invented, or partnerships with famous brands. The Renauld & Papi movement workshop is now owned by Luxury brand Audemars Piguet, but continues to design and manufacture complications for them as well as other leading brands.

It must be understood that most modern watches will contain parts from many different manufacturers. Rolex are unusual in their dedication to making everything themselves. Most other brands will use a mixture. One thing that is important is the Swiss Made designation. For this to hold, 60% of the components of the watch must be made in Switzerland and it must be cased (assembled) and tested in Switzerland also. Only watches that fulfil this can write Swiss Made on the dial.

It is an important component of luxury watch-making that some parts of the watch are hand made or hand-finished and that the watch is assembled by hand. This is not true of low-priced watches, where most have been engineered to be almost entirely made by machine. Quartz watches usually do not feature movement finishing as the movements are hidden behind the case back. For mechanical watches, it is common today to display the movement through sapphire casebacks. This gives the opportunity to create beautiful finishes to the parts and the movement itself. These finishes can be done by machine, but as a sign of commitment to luxury, many high-end brands do them by hand. 

One exciting thing to research when looking at luxury watch brands is how much is done by hand. For example, the luxury German brand Lange & Sohne finish almost every aspect of the movement by hand, including parts that cannot be seen. Swiss brand Patek Philippe are also famous for hand-finishing parts that cannot be seen. They do this as a commitment to quality for their customers, indicating that if they take that level of detail for the parts that cannot be seen, the quality and reliability of the whole watch will be very high.

Watchmakers have used independent organisations to verify the accuracy and reliability of their timepieces for a long time, and the two Swiss certification agencies of COSC and METAS certify millions of high-quality timepieces as chronometers per year in Switzerland. Rolex also test every single watch after it has been finished to ensure it meets their promised high standards, including testing their dive watches to 125% of their rated water depth. Most companies don't have the resources to do this, so will have a different Quality Control procedure. Often these are done by highly trained people, and it is a mark of a quality brand that is happy to advertise and talk about this. One good example is the young British brand Fears, based in the UK, where the founder regularly posts the details on his Instagram account of the quality control procedure he undertakes on every watch before it is delivered.

One of the huge benefits of the move to highly automated modern manufacturing systems is the collapse in the cost of designing and making a watch to a good standard. This has been demonstrated by the explosion of startup watch Microbrands over the last 15 years. Using common design software and Chinese manufacturing and assembly, it is easy for people to make a small run of new watches for a very low price. This has allowed the flourishing of design ideas, the establishment of new brands in countries with no history of watchmaking, and the resurrection of older brands with new ideas and energy. We encourage you to look out for microbrands you like the look of and investigate their background. 

Modern watch manufacturing is complicated and highly sophisticated, and every manufacturer will do something different. We encourage you to ask watch salespeople and brands more about their manufacturing process so that you can appreciate what a brand is trying to do. We hope this article has given you some more questions to ask of your favourite brands, and if you need any help finding out more, just let us know and we can do some digging. It's also great to share you knowledge about how watches are made with other people, and at our regular events we all do just that. Find out more on out Events Page or on our social media. 

We explore modern watch manufacturing and how watches are made

Modern Watch Manufacturing

We explore how modern watches are made

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. 

Today we assume all modern watches will be reliable and accurate during daily wear. Watchmakers have spent a long time working to achieve this, especially for the tiny mechanical movements that drive wristwatches. One of the key design problems watchmakers face is how to protect the movement from shocks, bangs and blows to the case, or episodes of shaking or vibration. This week's Blog Post will explain how this is done.

Shock protection for watch movements is a system of components designed to protect the delicate parts of a watch movement from the effects of impact and vibrations. This includes things like shock absorbers, springs, and shock protection plates. Shock protection helps to keep the watch running accurately and prevent potential damage to the movement. 

Some forms of shock protection protect the whole movement by carefully designing the parts holding the movement so they absorb the impact. This can be done with metal case surrounds, or in the case of some watches, with rubber parts. The goal is for any knocks to the case edges or sides not to be transmitted to the movement. 

Protecting the most important and fragile part, the Balance

The most fragile part of a mechanical wristwatch is the balance that sites within the escapement and ensures the watch keeps time. The small balance wheel turns around a pinion, or post, called a balance staff. This balance staff is held top and bottom by enclosures and usually a synthetic jewel is used to ensure it does not wear out too quickly. When watches are knocked or dropped, this balance staff can be knocked out of place, bend, or break. If this happens the watch will not run accurately. A solution invented in 1934 and patented as "Incabloc" was the first to be able to absorb blows from each different side and return the balance staff to the right position afterwards. It used a combination of a spring and a conical mounting design. 

While incabloc was a huge technical success, eventually many other competitors emerged. By the 1950s most mechanical watches incorporated a balance staff shock protection system such as this.

The modern watch world is full of watches that offer great shock protection for everyday use, plus some watches boast features that will protect them even under extreme uses, such as mountaineering, diving, and adventure sports. We've written about these unbreakable watches before, and a particular favourite is the Casio G-Shock, designed by someone who was fed up with his specialty diving watch not being tough enough. 

There are all kinds of modern materials watch makers use to provide shock protection, including rubber, plastic and carbon fibre. The additional metal movement rings in watches such as the Bremont Martin Baker or the Rolex DeepSea also provide immense strength and protection.

Even modern dress watches have some shock protection within the movement to protect the balance staff, as detailed above. They use different designs; Rolex has Paraflex, Omega use Nivachoc, and there are many more. As well as these spring based protection systems, many of the parts of high-end and luxury watch movements are now made of specialty materials to make them stronger and more impact resistant.  

Almost all modern watches will have some kind of shock protection designed into the balance and other parts of the movement. If you have a vintage watch from before the 1950s when Shock-Protection became widely available, it is crucial to take great care of it, but given your watch is already nearly 70 years old we are sure you already do!

Shock-protection is necessary for all mechanical watch movements to protect many of the parts and especially the Balance and Balance Staff. There are many interesting technological aspects of shock-protection, and you can rest assured all modern watch movements use at least some of them. The Watch Collectors' Club is here to help you learn more about the watch world, so if there are any further watch parts or technologies you'd like to hear about, please let us know!

What does Shock Protection mean in a watch? We explore shock protection in watches.

Why does a watch need Shock Protection?

We explore what shock protection means for your watch

It is common to see many mechanical watches advertise their Anti-Magnetic properties. You may have wondered what the problem is and what the risks are to your watch. This article will explain magnetism and the technologies of anti-magnetism in the Watch World.  

Magnetism is a fundamental property of all things, in that every object emits electromagnetic forces from its atoms as part of the quantum structure of reality. Some materials are affected so strongly in this way that they can attract and repel other items using these forces. We call objects acting in this way magnets, the most common magnetic material is iron or steel, and we find them useful in everyday life. Magnetism can also be created by electrical forces from devices such as motors, smartphones, charges, etc.

Fortunately, most magnetism wears off and it requires very special materials to create a so-called permanent magnet. Most things that become magnetised can be de-magnetised deliberately or the magnetism fades over time.

Mechanical watches are made up of a large number of small parts, many of which are made of metal. Certain metals and metal alloys can easily become magnetised for a short period when in the presence of a magnetic field. For a watch to remain accurate and reliable, it has to work as intended and all the parts have to move at the right speed. If some of the parts become magnetised, their relationship to each other may change due to the magnetic force, and therefore their speed of movement may change. This may interfere with the accuracy of the watch.

One part, in particular, is at risk; the hairspring in the escapement. This is the part of the watch that makes it tick and regulates the timekeeping. The various parts of the escapement are small and if they become magnetised they can move differently from how they are supposed to. The hairspring is a fine spring and if this gets magnetised it can mean the watch runs faster than it is supposed to.

How do watchmakers make a watch antimagnetic?

Fortunately, watchmakers have been working on this problem for 150 years. The first specifically antimagnetic wristwatch was made by Tissot in 1930 and used a special metal alloy including Palladium to make the Hairspring less at risk of magnetism. 

Another popular technique is to surround the whole watch movement with a special case made of soft iron, which will literally intercept a magnetic field before it can affect a movement. One of the most famous antimagnetic watches in the world uses this technique, the Rolex Milgauss. 

Many modern watches use a variety of metal alloys that are anti-magnetic, or highly resistant to magnetic fields to make their watch components, specifically the Hairsping and other parts of the escapement. There is a widespread increase in the use of silicon to make watch parts, and one reason is that silicon does not become magnetised easily. We can see this in watches from Oris, where their new Calibre 400 movement specifically boasts many anti-magnetic properties. 

It is also the case that modern watch cases themselves are antimagnetic and protect the movement from magnetic fields. Case materials such as Titanium and the 316L Stainless Steel alloy used by many luxury watch brands provide a large degree of protection on their own. 

It should be noted however that a sapphire or crystal watch case back does not offer protection from magnetic fields, so watches with those features need to make sure they include antimagnetic features within the movement itself, such as the silicon parts mentioned above.

What can I do to avoid magnetising my watch? 

Some watches are more at risk of becoming magnetised because they did not include any of these technologies as standard. Vintage watches from before around 1990 are likely to be more at risk, especially those in thin cases such as Dress Watches. 

To avoid magnetising these watches make sure you keep them away from anything that has a magnetic clasp, such as some jewellery boxes, bags and coats. Your mobile or smartphone can generate magnetic fields by simply operating. These are quite weak, but those generated by the chargers for such devices are not, and therefore you should keep your watches away from chargers at all times. Another device featuring a large magnet is your microwave so do not wear any vintage watches near microwaves for any length of time.

It is possible to test for a watch being magnetised using a machine or a smartphone app. If a watch has become magnetised (and usually is running fast because of it), a machine can be used to demagnetise it, and these can be found affordably online. When a watch is serviced it is demagnetised as part of the process if necessary.

Today, many watches advertise themselves as antimagnetic or a close reading of their specifications will show that they include this as a feature. Almost all tool watches, such as diving watches or adventure watches will have these features. Some watch movements such as the Omega Master Chronometer range all feature an escapement design that is highly antimagnetic, meaning all of their watches with this feature will be highly resistant to magnetic fields. The Oris in-house calibres, the 400 and 100, are other good examples of this. 

Almost all quartz and digital watches are antimagnetic unless in the presence of some very powerful ones such as those found in MRI machines in a hospital. Quartz movements can be affected by magnetism but much less so and it will be very unlikely to seriously affect it.

Modern watches often advertise anti-magnetic properties and we at The Watch Collectors' Club enjoy exploring which features of the watch make them safe from magnetic fields. Modern materials used in watches today make them much less at risk of a fall in accuracy despite the increase in magnetic fields in modern-day life. If some of your watches have specific antimagnetic features we'd love to hear about them, we are always curious about new and interesting watch features. You can join one of our in-person or online watch events, or get in touch via Social Media.

What is an antimagnetic watch? What protects a watch from magnetic fields?

What makes a watch Antimagnetic?

We explore how magetism affects and watch and how watchmakers prevent it.

The humble case of your watch is far more complicated than you may realise. It is the result of hundreds of years of hard work improving designs and construction techniques to produce something that protects a very delicate movement from shocks, water, dust, and damage. This week's Blog Post will examine the different types of cases and how you can find one that suits your needs.

Watches are simply small clocks, and all clocks and watches have always had some kind of case. In the 15th century, they were made small enough to be carried around as travel clocks or pocket clocks, and it was then that metal cases became really necessary. Previously they were contained in wooden cases or had none at all.

Over the following 400 years, case making got pretty sophisticated and as advanced manufacturing techniques were developed to make the cases and movements very cheaply, and pocket watches became mass market items. Expensive cases in precious metals were always made by hand to avoid waste.

By modern standards, these cases were not very good. They weren't sealed against water access, which meant they could also allow dirt and dust inside. The First World War led to the widespread adoption of wristwatches as the conditions on the battlefield made them much more convenient than pocket watches. As a result, innovations in new types of sealed cases sprang up all over the place.

Following World War One, demand for men's wristwatches boomed, and this increased the demand for both hand made and machine made cases, in volume, of many different types. There was great demand for rectangular cases, and the most famous of those from the 1930s is found on the world's first sports watch, the Jaeger LeCoultre Reverso. This case is reversible to protect the glass, and is such an iconic design it is still sold today.

We'll save a discussion on what waterproof really means for a future Blog Post, but the demands of war led to the urgent search for reliably waterproof wristwatches. A watch worn on the wrist is exposed to so much more dust, dirt and water than when kept safely in a coat pocket. The first attempts were labelled Submarine or similar, and companies such as Rolex sold them. The cases were multi-part cases that slid together or screwed together. However, they were not particularly reliable and did not take off at this point.

The Rolex Oyster was the first waterproof watch to hit the mainstream and it came about because of Rolex Founder Hans Wilsdorf's determination to create a much more robust case to house his high-quality movements. He knew his customers would love a properly sealed case, and he was right. Using stunts such as putting fish tanks in jewellery store windows with his watch ticking away in the middle, the Oyster was a great success from its launch in 1927. 

Companies such as Omega also launched their own version, in this case called the Marine. They did not have Rolex's marketing flair and these watches were not as successful. The Rolex Oyster is still the core of the Rolex brand today.

World War Two transformed the watch industry, both for the watchmaking companies and the demand for types of watch. Military watches were ordered with ever increasing standards of toughness and reliability. This required thicker cases and more screw-down backs or bezels. The famous Dirty Dozen set of watches were ordered by the British Army in 1944, where the W.W.W on the back stands for Watch Wrist Waterproof.

What makes watch cases so interesting? What makes for a good watch case?