Where to start?
No need to beat about the bush: Familiarising with the world of watches can be overwhelming at the beginning. What are the different mechanisms, functions and watch styles? How about the most famous brands, what do they stand for, and what’s their price tag? If you know zero about watches and you have asked yourself questions like that before, this brief guide is quite the read for you. It should help you get familiar with some of the most important terms in the shortest amount of time possible.
Quartz Vs. Mechanical
Generally, one can distinguish between mechanical (hand-wound and automatic) and battery powered, so-called quartz watches. Whereas quartz watches are highly accurate, practical and relatively inexpensive, mechanical watches might be the purist’s choice: Even though their time deviance might be higher, there is no battery used. Instead, everything is mechanical, either wound by hand (hand-wound) or by the motion of the hand through every-day wear (automatic). On most watches either Automatic or Quartz would be indicated, while many watches whose dial indicates neither Automatic nor Quartz are hand wind. Still, not all automatic or quartz watches are marked as such. One can also distinguish a mechanical watch from a quartz watch by observing the motion of the second hand. If it’s moving forward smoothly it is a mechanical watch. The second hand of a quartz watch will “jump” from one second to the next.
Functions next to Time Measure: When Complications are Desirable
Complications are additional functions next to the actual time measure. Arguably, the most famous complication is the chronograph function. A chronograph is a stop watch, generally with two or three sub dials, or sub-registers, that indicate the stopped time (with the exception of the stopped second, which is usually shown by the big central second hand). The stop watch function is started and stopped by two pushers that are located at the 2 and the 4 o’clock position.
hronograph is commonly confused with chronometer (The second refers to particularly accurate watches certified by the official Swiss chronometer institute (COSC)).
Another commonly used complication is the date function. Most date watches will always count to 31 regardless of month, so that one will have to reset the date for every month with less than 31 days. Other watches also indicate the week day and the current month. If they do both, they would be referred to as full calendar. Other watches indicate the current moonphase on the dial. Many watches, like this Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso, combine a full calendar with a moonphase display.
Pilot or Diver? Everyone Has Their Own Style
Even if we are self-titled mechanical revolutionists, we don’t think watches are all about the technical stuff. Quite the contrary. First and foremost watches are about subjective style rather than just metric measures. Questions like how does a watch look and feel on someone’s wrist or how does a watch embody someone’s style and personality are key and decide whether we like a watch or not. There are sportier timepieces like divers or pilots watches and more elegant ones that are also commonly referred to as dresswatches. The second, tend to be more delicate looking and usually are noticeably smaller. Their cases are often made of robust or plated gold and they are usually worn on a thin leather bracelet.
Sports watches are mostly bigger and more flashy and robust looking. They often feature a chronograph complication, rotating bezels and one or more scales at the edge of the dial or on the bezel. Examples of sportier watches would be divers watches, GMT watches and watches that address the racing theme.
Divers watches feature luminescent hands and indexes and their dials are usually darker in order to warrant great legibility under water. Also they have unidirectional bezels, which are used for stopping the time under water. Needless to say, the most important criteria for a divers watch is sufficient water resistance. Most divers watches start with 150 or 200 meter water proofness.
A World Full of Brands and the best watch for you
As you might have noticed already, there is much more than just one or two brands out there. In fact, watches are all about brands and their most iconic models. Most brands put a big effort into carrying their heritage to the future. The epicentre of quality watchmaking is, as you might have figured yourself, Switzerland. However, there are is a broad range of admirable watches from countries like Germany, France, Italy, Great Britain, and others too.
You best watch must not be expensive or have 1000 years of heritage. We believe that it should compliment you style, high quality & chic without breaking you bank.
