Interesting facts about watches
1. Before the digital age, when people didn't have mobile phones, wristwatches were the main way to tell the time. But it was not always so. Until the early 1900s, they were not popular (although they had existed for a long time (the first mention of them appeared back in 1571)). Instead of wrist watch, people then used pocket ones.
Today, pocket watches have lost their former popularity, but then, in fact, they were the only means of determining the time on the go.
The first pocket watch was invented in 1510 and gained popularity in the 1700s and 1800s.
2. The first documented clock was found in Egypt. The exact time of their creation is difficult to determine, but archaeologists believe that they were made between 2000 and 1500 AD.
The Egyptians created clocks by making a stone obelisk and then placing it in a certain place so that it would follow the path of the sun. By reading the length and direction of the obelisk's shadow as the sun moved, the Egyptians could tell the time roughly. This amazing creation at that time is known as a sundial.
Later, people began to make water clocks more accurate than sundial.
3. Wristwatches began to gain their popularity during the First World War. It was then that they began to displace pocket ones that were not very convenient in combat operations. Moreover, many men also wore wristwatches, placing the dial on the inside of their wrist, which allowed them to see the time while holding a rifle. As more and more men began to wear wristwatches, their popularity intensified with the end of the First World War.
4. The best-selling watch in the world is the Apple Watch. And they have been holding this leadership for several years. Moreover, the gap between Apple Watch and other brands is so huge that the “king of smartwatches” surpasses the entire Swiss industry in sales: in 2019, 31 million Apple Watch units were sold, while all of Switzerland sold only 21 million units of watches from different brands.
5. If a simple quartz watch consists of several dozen parts, and a mechanical one - just over a hundred, the most complex watch ever created contains 2826 parts, squeezed into a "box" with a diameter of several centimeters.
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The superiority in the "stuffing" belongs to the creation of the Swiss company Vacheron Constantin, namely the model Constantin Vacheron Reference 57260. It took eight years to assemble this model.
Like the famous Patek Philippe Grandmaster, the Reference 57260 was produced in a single copy by order of a major collector who paid about $10 million for this creation.
6. When you buy a watch, you most likely do not even think about which hand you will wear it on. That's right, because most people wear them on their left hand. But why do we wear watches on the left and not on the right one?
Everything is quite simple. The fact is that it is more convenient to wear them on the non-dominant hand (for most of the world's population it is the left hand), so on the left hand they will not interfere with the owner when using their dominant hand (respectively, the right hand).
In addition, the design itself somewhat limits their use with the left hand. After all, the crown or power button is usually located on the right side.
7. Rolex is by far the most famous watch brand in the world. This is a real gem of Swiss watchmaking. But did you know that this largest company was founded in England and not in Switzerland?
In 1905, German entrepreneur Hans Wilsdorf and British politician and businessman Alfred Davis founded Wilsdorf amp; Davis Ltd (later renamed Rolex) in London. In 1919, Hans Wilsdorf moved his company to the Swiss city of La Chaux-de-Fonds. And this was not due to the fact that at that moment Swiss watches were more popular than English ones. The reason for this was the bad tax policy in the UK, established by the government of the country after the end of the First World War.
8. As we noted earlier, Switzerland, despite its fame, produces watches even less than Apple alone. But who takes the lead in terms of their volume of manufacture? We think you will not be surprised to learn that this is China. To understand the production volumes of China, suffice it to say that it exported 5 times more watches than the 5 countries included in the top 6 watch manufacturers in the world combined.
9. You may have noticed that in most advertisements, the hands on the watch dials almost always show the same time - 10:10. This was done for two reasons. The first is that the hands do not block the view of the aesthetic elements of the dial, such as the brand logo, subdials, date windows, etc. These additional elements are usually installed in the area of the numbers 12, 3, 9 and 6, so the location of the hands at 10:10 allows them not to be blocked.
The second is psychological. Marketers believe that the hands set at 10:10 create a kind of smile on the dial, which expresses positivity and attracts customers.
10. Until 1585, they had only two hands - hour and minute. In 1585, the Swiss and German mathematician Jost Burgi, who at that time was in the service of the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel Wilhelm IV, designed a clock with three hands. It was thanks to Bürgi that it became possible to measure a new unit of time - the second.
For most of us, a watch is the simplest item that helps us keep track of time and acts as an accessory. And today it is clearly not something that attracts the attention of others.
But not so long ago, such an accessory was something unique, amazing and valuable. And a person has come a long way since they turned from something expensive and inaccessible, into a simple little thing, accessible to almost every person on the planet.
And in today's article, we decided to take a closer look at this amazing device for determining the current time of day. In the article we have prepared the most interesting facts about watches.
