The Pride of Owning a Mechanical Watch

Mechanical watches embody the human quest for progress, and give us a glimpse into a bygone era before electronics.  Unlike many of their contemporary alternatives, they do not have batteries (and certainly not Bluetooth!).

But that's not to say that these machines are not themselves feats of engineering.  Each mechanical watch contains a "movement" with hundreds of parts that work in concert to overcome the many obstacles that stand in the way of accurate timekeeping.

The field of horology has made tremendous strides since the introduction of the first mechanical watch in the early 1500s.  As manufacturing methods and technologies improved, so did accuracy.  Then with the advent of industrialization and mass production in the late 1800s and early 1900s, accurate and dependable watches were made available to the common man for the first time ever.  In fact, South Bend Watch Company was one of the finest watch manufacturers to do so. 

The design of the watches from that era has stood the test of time.  Today's mechanical movements are very similar to those from a hundred years ago, and each watch that we sell has a movement that is based on the design of the pocket watches from the early 1900s.

So how do mechanical watches work?  And how is owning one different than a quartz watch?

The best way to understand how a mechanical watch works is to see it in action (which is why our watches have a transparent case back).  This video does an excellent job of depicting the many components at work.