Watches: Snap Or Sweep?

If you're really looking to stand out, you need a seconds hand that does more than a 360° spin

- Richard Holt

In the watch supplement that comes with this issue, we look at cars and watches with a history so intertwined you really can’t imagine one without the other.

Watches have been around longer, of course, but they are the junior partner. Watches often imitate cars. Some even contain bits of metal shaved from old cars. There’s one on the opposite page with a minute hand that looks like an old rev counter. All of the watches opposite in fact contain a watchmaking curiosity called a retrograde hand. This may seem to have been copied from cars, but wasn’t.

We all know how a normal watch hand moves – rotating 360°, aka going round and round in circles. A retrograde hand climbs from point A to point B before snapping back to the starting point and so on, as long as it keeps ticking. This might be how dashboard instruments work too, but watchmakers have been doing it for centuries.

Clocks and pocket watches with retrograde hands first appeared in the late 17th century. As watches became must-have status symbols, they were always looking for clever ways to stand out and retrograde hands later became popular with fancy brands like Vacheron Constantin, and master watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet.