We look at the watch industry’s most significant and history watches that revolutionized the world of watchmaking.

1. The Cartier Santos Mechanical Watch – The Watch That Popularized Men’s Wristwatches

There is great debate over who should be credited with designing the very first wristwatch. One account traces the origins of the wristwatch back to Queen Elizabeth I, who, in 1571, received a bejeweled and ornately-decorated “arm watch” from the Earl of Leicester as a new year gift. However, the watchmaker is unknown and the description of the since-lost “arm watch” does not paint a picture of the wristwatch we know today. From this time and through the early 20th century, the majority of wristwatches were designed for women and meant to be a piece of jewelry, a bracelet-watch hybrid. Ladies watches were often embellished with precious stones. Fashionable men, meanwhile, preferred to carry a “masculine” and weighty pocket watch. Beyond style, it was believed that the heftier pocket watch was more durable and a more accurate time-keeper than the daintier ladies’ counterparts.

However, during the 19th century, tastes and needs began to change. Military men in particular began wearing their pocket watches as a wrist-watch adaptation by slipping the pocket watch into a kind of pocket and opening on a leather strap.

The real watershed moment for men’s wristwatches was in 1904. The famed Brazilian aviator, Alberto Santos-Dumont, explained to his friend Louis Cartier that it was difficult to read and record flight times with his pocket watch. Cartier set about designing a flat wristwatch with a square bezel that would ultimately be named the Cartier Santos watch. The Santos was a commercial sensation and was the turning point in the industry that made wristwatches a popular and stylish accessory for men and women alike.

2. The Rolex Oyster Perpetual – The First Self-Winding Watch with a Perpetual Rotor

In 1923, British watchmaker John Harwood developed and patented the self-winding wristwatch. His revolutionary invention meant wristwatches would no longer need to be manually wound daily. Instead, Harwood’s automatic mechanical watch was wound by a small weight inside that would turn 180 degrees to wind the mainspring and supply the watch’s energy. There were, however, shortcomings to Harwood’s design: the wearer could feel the bump of the weight’s movement and the watch only remained powered for 12 hours.

In 1930, Rolex improved upon Harwood’s initial design and developed the Rolex Oyster Perpetual. Rolex updated Harwood’s semi-circular weight so it would rotate a full 360 degrees. This vastly increased the amount of energy stored in the mainspring to 35 hours. In 1931, Rolex patented the world’s first self-winding mechanism with a Perpetual rotor, a system that is effectively used in every modern automatic watch today.

3. The Bulova Accutron Watch – The First Electronic Watch

Although the Bulova Accutron did not have the completely crippling economic effect of the greater Quartz Crisis, the Accutron was the first to disrupt the tradition of mechanical watches. The watch brand Bulova spent eight years developing the Accutron and debuted their invention in 1960. Unlike the day’s ubiquitous mechanical watches that relied on a mainspring to power it, the Bulova Accutron used a 360 hertz tuning fork as the time keeping element. This new movement effectively made the Bulova Accutron the first electronic watch and, at the time of its release, the most accurate wristwatch available, accurate within 60 seconds a month.

The battery-powered Accutron watch did not use a quartz watch but was the inspiration for the later, superior quartz movements that would ultimately devastate the watch industry in the 1970s and 1980s.

4. The Seiko Spring Drive – The Most Accurate Mechanical Watch

The Seiko Spring Drive is a unique watch movement developed by an ambitious Seiko engineer, Yoshikazu Akahane, who aimed to create an electronic watch, wound by a mainspring, with an unparalleled one-second-a-day accuracy. Ultimately Akahane spent 28 years creating 600 prototypes before he perfected the patented design in 1982.

The Spring Drive movement is an engineering marvel that uses a mainspring, barrel automatic winder, and a mechanical watch’s stem winding to store the watch’s energy. Essentially, the Spring Drive movement uses a quartz oscillator but is powered by a mainspring like a mechanical watch. It also uses a device dubbed the Seiko “Tri-Synchro Regulator” that regulates the unwinding of the mainspring and makes the Seiko Spring Drive the most accurate mechanical watch ever made. The movement features a true continuously sweeping second hand, a friction-free regulator and is virtually soundless.

The Seiko Spring Drive watch was introduced in 1999. The Spring Drive was considered Seiko’s crowning achievement for its exceptional technology and was one of the biggest developments in watchmaking since the quartz watch.

5. Vacheron Constantin Ref. 57260 – The World’s Most Complicated Pocket Watch

In 2015, Vacheron Constantin released their Reference 57260 pocket watch which currently holds the title of the most complicated pocket watch in the world. (A watch complication refers to any feature a watch includes beyond its hour and minute time display.)

Vacheron Constantin unseated Patek Philippe who previously held the record with the Patek Philippe Calibre 89 that had 33 complications and was released in 1989 to celebrate the watchmaker’s 150th anniversary. Vacheron Constantin’s Ref. 57260 boasts a whopping 57 complications including a world time display, a perpetual calendar, a Hebrew perpetual calendar, an alarm with seven functions, a lunar calendar, and an astronomical calendar.

It took over eight years just to assemble the 2,800 individual parts that make up the massive pocket watch. The price for the Vacheron Constatin Ref. 57260 is undisclosed but experts estimate it is worth over $10 million USD.

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