500 Years, 100 Watches

The highly elegant and informative coffee table book "500 Years, 100 Watches" presents a selection of one hundred watches compiled by two leading experts in watch collecting. The watch book traces the evolution of timepieces and highlights unusual, important and beautifully crafted watches of the past half millennium.

For centuries, people have been fascinated by watches because of their technical precision, their unique design or their historical importance. Each of the hundred watches in this elegant book is distinguished by one or more of these qualities. Arranged chronologically and by century, the watches are presented in spacious, double-page spreads with beautiful photography and engaging, incisive text.

Readers will discover examples of the earliest watch forms; an amazing Elizabethan-era watch with astrolabic dial; an early 17th-century watch encased in a single emerald; two of the earliest watches with a balance spring - a feature that revolutionized portable timekeeping; and some of the first repeating and perpetual calendar watches. These are followed by the first lever watch, invented by Thomas Mudge; important precision watches; early 19th-century enamel and automatic watches; highly complex watches by Breguet and Patek Philippe; Sir Winston Churchill's yellow gold World Time Victory watch; a Rolex wristwatch in honor of India's Republic Day; an Omega Speedmaster that went into space; and a Roger Smith wristwatch completed in 2023.

With beautifully reproduced photographs appearing together for the first time in book form, this historic collection will appeal to sophisticated collectors, amateur watch enthusiasts and anyone with an interest in the art and science of horology.

Specifications
Title: 500 Years, 100 Watches
Author: Alexander Barter, Daryn Schnipper
Publisher: Prestel
Size: 309 x 270 x 29 mm
Size: 304 pages
Weight: 2088 grams
Language: English
Material: Hardcover
ISBN: 9783791379753

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