Within a few centuries, clocks were used as a status symbol by those who bear them. Their precision, elegance and convenience are just some of the attributes that clocks and represents. Often they are bought solely for their aesthetic appearance. and other times they are bought because of their technical attributes like being precise to the last second or even millisecond. That is what makes clocks and watches so collectible and in some cases can command huge sums.
Whether you assemble the new high-precision clocks, or those coming from a bygone era, it is a fact that over the years this hobby has become a major trading company. And collection of watches in many circles regarded as a clever form of investment.
At the beginning of last century, the watches, which were available for men or women were first pocket watches, clocks, and then held by a pendant attached to the lining of jackets or corsets. The advent of war, industrialization, and development of sports activities, brought over new trends which extended to not only the way we dress, but how we conducted our watches.
It is said that it was a nanny who invented wrist watches at around the late 19th century, set a watch around her wrist by a silken ribbon. The first watches to be made was in fact smaller models of pocket watches, which were equipped with a leather strap. When this product hit the market newer designs started to be produced based around the same concept.
It was Louis Cartier who first such clocks we see today, when he created a watch for a flying pioneer hero by the name Santos Dumont. In year 1911, the same type of clock was on general sale. The same type of clock was the plan for what wrist watches look like this today.
Shortly after the design of wrist "clocks" began to spread from the classical round shape, which was in vogue up to that point. From classic Cartier wristwatch other brands clock began to emerge which were characterized by their shape. Movado is the perfect example of this new design when it came out with "Polyplan" shaped clock. Then came the famous and the cryptically named "clock reference n. 1593" as Patek Philippe, which had a rectangular shaped watch.
From 1913 onwards, more and more watches began to be developed in all shapes and styles. From the "gondola" watch of Patek Phillipe to Louis Cartier ' "Tank", so named because it was inspired by the shape of the English armored cars of the time. These watches are very popular. There were other numerous guard makers like Audemars Piguet, Vacheron Constantin, who along with Patek Philippe and Cartier came out with many other patterns, which are added other features to watch as the moon phases, month and day for the most part found in modern watches now.
Of course we can not mention wrist watches without mentioning the most famous of them all: the Rolex watch. In the 1920 Rolex debuted in the world of wrist watches with the elegant Rolex Prince and its revolutionary "dual time" feature made famous for having the "seconds sector" larger than the minutes. Co Jaeger Le Coultre produced an even more advanced piece called "Reverse", also very revolutionary in that it can rotate 180 degrees in its case, thus protecting the crystal and dial. It was extremely popular and was only prevented from achieving even greater success as a recession in the 1930s and the emergence of 2 World War II.
These early clocks in the 1910s to the 1930s, are what define all the makes of watches that we see and wear today. This short article has only scratched the surface of what is a very big issue that has many more see-makers with different and revolutionary design. But it's makers as Rolex, Cartier, Jaeger Le Coultre, and the other said that among the most valuable and collectible, and if you should ever be lucky enough to get one so be sure to hang on it - preferably on the wrist.
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