History
One of the most significant intellectual and technological advances in the history of mankind has been the conceptualization of time and the invention of the sundial, the first device used to mark the passage of time as we know it today. It would be a very long time from that first tool to measure passing hours until the 16th Century when the first spring driven clocks were created on the continent of Europe by a German man known as Peter Henlein. Some historians, however, believe this could be inaccurate by a full hundred years due to two remaining examples of such clocks in the 1400’s.
It would not be much longer until the first watch sized clocks were created in a style that could be worn. These were large and clumsy, shaped like a cylinder and designed to hang about the neck from a chain. They did not read minutes, possessing only an hour hand. The shape eventually evolved into an egg like construct and would go on to feature primitive alarms. Eventually, the shapes became more complex as the tooling grew more focused, providing watch customers with such unusual shapes as fruits, stars, crosses, animals, skulls and even insects. Charles the II of England would be the first to own what we now know as a pocket watch in 1675, popularizing them along with waistcoats. These first pocket watches featured glass covers to protect the dial and were significantly more intricate than their early ancestors.
The balance spring would prove to be an important development in watch making, creating a more harmonious function within the watch itself and generating a time recording effect that was less disturbed by everyday movements that previously knocked a pocket watch out of sync. During the Enlightment Period of the late 1700’s, watches came to be seen as genuine instruments of science, a well respected academic study by that time. Compensation for temperature came to be taken into account and watches began being used in marine expeditions to keep track of longitude through certain complications built into them. Many watches featuring highly complex astronomical complications were introduced during these years.
Soon, jewel bearings were introduced to help create a more durable and accurate form of time keeping and it would not be long before time pieces would be able to be manufactured in volume. Mass production began in 1830 as the process proved itself highly efficient for creating the parts used within watches. These interchangeable parts were key to the development of the railroads which needed time pieces that kept absolutely accurate time so that they could safely conduct trains from one destination to the next. Railroad chronometers were of the highest quality and revolutionary for their time due to this dependence on reliability and accuracy. By 1876 a man by the name of Roskopf would bring cheaply produced watches to the market that were so affordable the average worker could own his very own to help him tell time for his work schedule. Shortly before the 1900’s, the United States took the vast majority of the market share for low to medium grade watches from the then dominant Switzerland companies and so those Swiss companies made the decision to focus their efforts on luxury watches.
This would change the world of watches forever and between 1911 and 1950, the wrist watch rose to prominence. Since that time, watches have improved in design, technological proficiency and quality at a rapid pace.