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priortothiwristwatch-blog · 7 years

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Photos: The A to Z of watchesN

Prior to this wristwatch appearing for sale, the most famous of Churchill's watches was a

Breguet

pocket watch, which was in daily use. (For those who adore synchronicity, Lemania was absorbed by Breguet and is now part of the Swatch Group.)

Photos: The A to Z of watchesN is for Nanotechnology – To make watches more reliable, accurate, and durable, modern watchmaking uses manufacturing methods capable of producing micron-level precision, from computer-guided milling machines (standard in watchmaking today) to nanotech manufacturing techniques like silicon fabrication and even more exotic methods like the micro-lithography technique known as LIGA. A watchmaker from 100 years ago would understand how a watch of today works, but the processes would make his jaw drop.Hide Caption14 of 26

Photos: The A to Z of watchesO is for Omega – Over the course of its history, Omega has been an industry leader in just about every way that matters. They've developed everything from wristwatches and marine chronometers, to pioneering watches for deep diving and ocean exploration. Omega timepieces have been just about everywhere -- including space. The Omega Speedmaster's most famous moment as "the Moonwatch" came when it was used by the Apollo 13 crew to time critical firing of their crippled spaceship's rocket to ensure a safe reentry. (Cabin instruments were shut down to save precious battery power.)Hide Caption15 of 26

Photos: The A to Z of watchesP is for Patek Philippe – Founded in 1851, the name has, since its inception, been synonymous with the very highest level of finesse. Patek Philippe's watches are beautifully crafted, often mechanically innovative and, just as importantly, they're some of the most collectible and valuable watches on the planet. Want proof? Patek Philippe watches routinely break and set records. The highest price ever paid at auction was by an anonymous collector who, in 2015, paid $24.4 million for an ultra-complex pocket watch made in the 1930s for American banker Henry Graves.Hide Caption16 of 26

Photos: The A to Z of watchesQ is for Quartz – Though they're commonplace nowadays, quartz watches were not only the very hottest thing in watchmaking, but also coveted luxury items when they were first released. The very first quartz watch ever was Seiko's Astron, which went on sale in Japan on Christmas, 1969, and cost as much as a new car. Mass production and lowered manufacturing costs meant that eventually anyone could have chronometer accuracy on their wrist. Many thought the so-called "Quartz Crisis" would kill off mechanical watches completely, but today, fine mechanical and durable, dependable watches, like Casio's famous G-Shock, happily coexist in the marketplace.

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Photos: The A to Z of watchesR is for Rolex – People who've never heard of any other watch company have heard of Rolex. And for good reason: no company has been so successful at insinuating itself into the public mind as this Swiss watch brand. Rolexes have been seen on innumerable wrists in the movies, starting with Sean Connery's Bond. The classic novice's goof is to think of Rolex as all show and no go, but real horological insiders know that Rolex's movements are some of the most accurate, robust and reliable on the planet.Hide Caption18 of 26

Photos: The A to Z of watchesS is for Silicon – Lighter than steel and, critically, non-magnetic, silicon has a huge advantage over traditional alloys. Silicon is part of what's behind the resistance to magnetism of Omega watches, and you might be surprised to hear that Patek Philippe, a company that's identified with doing things the old-fashioned way, has embraced silicon technology for moving parts in many of its watches as well.Hide Caption19 of 26

Photos: The A to Z of watchesT is for Timex – Timex is an older company than most might imagine. It was originally founded in 1854 as the Waterbury Watch Company and, in one form or another, has been around ever since. Timex was one of the first brands to make inexpensive watches accessible to the masses. The brand continues that tradition today. Their biggest hit in advertising was a series of TV ads in which they would do spectacular torture tests -- involving things like jackhammers, paint mixers, and outboard motors -- and then show the watch running unscathed, with the world-famous tagline: "Takes a licking and keeps on ticking."Hide Caption20 of 26

Photos: The A to Z of watchesU is for UTC – These watches have an extra hour hand that shows the time in a different time zone. Typically, the main hour hand can be reset, independently of the other hands, in one-hour increments as you cross time zones while traveling, so it always shows the correct local time. A second hour hand, pegged to a 24-hour scale, shows home time, so at a glance you can see the time where you are, and the time at home. The classic model is the Rolex GMT Master, originally produced by the company for Pan Am pilots to help fight jet lag.Hide Caption21 of 26

Photos: The A to Z of watchesV is for Vintage Watch Collecting – Vintage watch collectors are incredibly varied in terms of what catches their eye, and focuses can be narrow and intense. Some people, for instance, collect only vintage Rolex Submariners with rare or unusual dials. You need deep pockets if you're one of them: vintage Rolex, like vintage Patek, have skyrocketed in price in the last decade, with some vintage Omega models, like the Speedmaster, not far behind. But buyer beware: the incredible prices some vintage watches routinely hit at auction have made creating fakes a lucrative business.

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Photos: The A to Z of watchesW is World Time Watch – A ring on the dial, showing the names of major cities in each time zone, has inside it a 24-hour disc that rotates once a day. Whichever hour is lined up with a given city is the current time in that city. A practical and beautiful complication, its only drawbacks are that it can't compensate for Daylight Savings time, and that some time zones are not a whole hour apart. However, some modern manufacturers have created world time watches that show the time even in those oddball time zones -- a beautiful, if pricey, example is the Traditionnelle World Time wristwatch from Vacheron Constantin.

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Photos: The A to Z of watchesX is for Xtremely Tough – The inventor of G-Shock is Casio engineer Kikuo Ibe, whose beloved mechanical watch broke accidentally. He then vowed to make a watch that was unbreakable. The first G-Shocks came out in the mid-1980s and they were tough alright. Ibe famously tested prototypes by throwing them out of the fourth-floor men's room window at Casio's research laboratory, into the parking lot below.Hide Caption24 of 26

Photos: The A to Z of watchesY is for Year – The challenge is that there aren't a whole number of days in a year. Instead, it's about 365 and a quarter days to make one trip around the Sun -- which is why months are different lengths, and why February has a day added once every four years to keep the calendar in sync with the seasons. The watchmaker's solution is a type of watch called a perpetual calendar. Such watches contain a tiny mechanical computer that automatically detects the correct length of each month, and always displays the correct date -- even at the end of February in a leap year. These watches are traditionally very expensive, but a major trend nowadays is creating more affordable perpetual calendar watches, like the Montblanc Meisterstück Heritage Perpetual Calendar, which starts at less than $10,000.Hide Caption25 of 26

Photos: The A to Z of watchesZ is for Zirconium Dioxide – Zirconium dioxide, also called just plain zirconia, is a ceramic. Yes, so is your grandmother's Wedgewood china, but there the resemblance ends. Zirconium dioxide is a tough, highly scratch-resistant material that's part of a big trend in the last decade of watchmaking to replace steel or aluminum case parts with scratchproof ceramics. Rolex and Omega, as well as a huge range of other firms like Blancpain and Rado, use the material for bezels and even entire cases, and you'll find ceramics commonly used in modern watch movements as well, where they are used for ball bearings in the automatic winding mechanism.Hide Caption26 of 26 More fromSTYLE

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Photos: The A to Z of watchesA is for Accuracy – Though quartz watches and atomic clocks (like the one that controls your smartphone) will always be more accurate than even the best mechanical watch, the pursuit of high precision in mechanics is still alive today. The fascination behind achieving precision timekeeping in a watch with gears and a mainspring, rather than a battery and an integrated circuit, is a big part of what's kept traditional watchmaking alive in the 21st century.

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