Automatic movement in mechanical wristwatches was not popular until the end of the First World War. A watch repairer from Isle of Man worked out a method that would wind up the watch without the need for doing it manually, but the story didn’t start in 1923, self-winding solutions were available well before the ‘hammers’.
The first pocket watches that could be winded by just walking around were made in 1770 in Switzerland. According to reports it could be fully charged in fifteen minutes and continued to work for eight days after on its own.
These clocks have an off balance weight that is tied to a rotor, which moves around every time the owner moves their hand. It allows for the mechanism to wind up using nothing else but the kinetic energy of one’s moving arm. The design was first put into wristwatches in 1923, but it was far from perfection.
The common name ‘hammer’ or ‘bumper’ for these models come from the fact that a bigger movement of the arm was necessary to move the rotor. After the great depression the company that had been manufacturing them for seven years shut down. Rowlex took over and improved the solution, making the weight go all the way around inside the watch rather than just a 180 degrees rotation allowed in bumpers.
It made Rowlex watches work much more reliably and with further additions to the invention they reached 35 hours of runtime without on a full windup.
By 1960 almost every mechanical design had an automatic movement component, which made manually winded watches obsolete. While this is truly an ingenious design, some luxury brands keep on making their manually winded versions, because those are simpler and can be put into a thinner casing.
Nowadays it’s so common that you can have an automatic watch for under $50, and even the best quality pieces stay under $500. With some added diamonds or precious metal straps you’re looking at a four figure price tag, but that would add thousands of dollars of extra cost to any $5 digital watch.
Watches are now worn for their aesthetic values rather than to have a device that tells you the time. Every mobile phone, GPS device, car radio and now even remote controls have a built in clock more accurate than the best mechanical clock ever produced.
While it may be daunting at first, keep in mind that a handmade clock requires work and therefore transmits value. No one heard of a mobile phone being inherited by children, but quite a few families hold on to their ancestors’ watches.
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