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The hand-winding movement of a Russian watch. A mechanical watch is a watch that uses a clockwork mechanism to measure the passage of time, as opposed to quartz watches which function using the vibration modes of a piezoelectric quartz tuning fork, or radio watches, which are quartz watches synchronized to an atomic clock via radio waves.
The history of watches began in 16th-century Europe, where watches evolved from portable spring-driven clocks, which first appeared in the 15th century. The watch was developed by inventors and engineers from the 16th century to the mid-20th century as a mechanical device, powered by winding a mainspring which turned gears and then moved the ...
By the 1960s, automatic winding had become widespread in quality mechanical watches. Because the rotor weight needed in an automatic watch takes up a lot of space in the case, increasing its thickness, some manufacturers of quality watches, such as Patek Philippe, continue to design manually wound watches, which can be as thin as 1.77 millimeters.
In modern mechanical watch designs, production of a highly accurate watch does not require a tourbillon. There is even debate among horologists as to whether tourbillons ever improved the accuracy of mechanical watches, even when first introduced, or whether the watches of the day were inherently inaccurate due to design and manufacturing ...
Watches were worn during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), and by the time of the Boer War (1899–1902), watches had been recognised as a valuable tool. [184] Early models were essentially standard pocket watches fitted to a leather strap, but, by the early 20th century, manufacturers began producing purpose-built wristwatches.
As of November 2018, the top four most complicated mechanical watches ever created are manufactured by Vacheron Constantin and Patek Philippe, respectively. [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] In particular, the Patek Philippe Henry Graves Supercomplication currently holds the title of the second most expensive watch ever sold at auction , with a final price of ...
Vostok Watch Makers, Inc. (Russian: Восток; literally meaning "East") is a Russian men's watchmaker based in Chistopol, Tatarstan, Russia. The company produces mainly rugged military and amfibia mechanical watches. It also makes clocks and watch movements for other watch brands. [2]
In horology, a wheel train (or just train) is the gear train of a mechanical watch or clock. [1] Although the term is used for other types of gear trains, the long history of mechanical timepieces has created a traditional terminology for their gear trains which is not used in other applications of gears.