Which was the best watch at SIHH 2018? Looking at the photo below, it may seem surprising to see a watch like this amongst the top watches at the Salon Internationale de la Haute Horlogerie. It has a classical dial and it doesn’t do anything revolutionary. But, when I was looking at the 1815 “Homage…
The true second feature is an unusual complication because it contradicts one of the traditional characteristics of mechanical watches. In most watches, the second hand, moving in increments of a sixth, eighth or tenth of a second, creates an impression of a continuous sweep, very different from the one-second increments of a quartz watch. The…
This watch, in a 46mm red gold case, 12.28 mm thick, has a lot of traditional watchmaking features, but its open-dial design gives it a modern appearance. The design is cleverly laid out with perfect symmetry, revealing how energy flows from the first mainspring barrel (on the right) on to the second barrel on the…
The Grande Seconde series of watches by Jaquet Droz is based on a pocket watch that brand founder Pierre Jaquet-Droz completed in 1784, with two intersecting dials, the larger subdial below for the seconds. It was a brilliant and quirky piece of design, and it is not clear why Pierre made the seconds dial so…