Complicated History

The final decades leading up to the arrival of the quartz movement were a golden era for mechanical timepieces. It was during these years that we saw the proliferation of the tool watch and an incredibly wide range of purpose-built models, with each one designed to serve a specific function.

We're all very familiar with the 'big' tool watches, the divers, the racing watches, the perpetual calendars (to an extent) but one of the most common utilitarian timepiece trends could be doctors and scientists. In this article, we dive into some of these 'other' tool watches and their historical uses.

To observant friends or fellow watch enthusiasts, the alarm complication can be the most striking and intriguing to see. Most often with two crowns or one crown and one pusher, alarm watches beg intrigue.

When every day feels eerily similar, it’s easier to say that the date ‘feels like somewhere in the 20s’. Continuing our series on horology’s complications, it is our hope to bring attention back to the date with a study of the date.

With numerous pragmatic ties between the worlds of horology and astrology, displaying lunar phases on a time telling device started in the 3rd century BC. In beginning our series on horology’s complications, there is no better place to start than the moon phase.