The beautiful history of hands

In a previous article, we talked about our circular hands, signature of Beaubleu which give a new vision of the time and a poetic reading of the clock. Now we would like to go back in the time and relate the story of the hands and how they affect the design and the personality of a watch.

Everything started with only one hand. Remember the sundials we talked about. The shadow of the sun on a flat surface used to tell the time of the day. This shadow gave birth to the hand for the hours, which was the only one until 1691. From this date, after the invention of the Spiral which gave more accuracy, the hands for the minutes have been invented by Daniel Quare. After in 1812, the first hands manufactory was created by Charles Wagnon. Other manufactories were created with more than 400 types of hands.

Despite all these types, they have the same composition: the base, the neck, the head and the body. And what do you think of talking about the most important types of hands?

The baton hands

Part of the most common hands, the baton hands have a straight and flat form, relatively dense. They can have a tip at the end.

The sword-shaped hands

As their name indicated, they have the form of a sword to indicate the hour. They are often on military or diving watches.

The Dauphine hands

The Dauphine hands take the form of an elongated triangle with a relief at the center. This is because of the facets.

The Breguet Hands

Invented in 1783 by the famous watchmaker Abraham Louis Breguet, this thin and litgh hand has at its end a hollowed-out moon.

The Skeleton hands

This type of hands permits to see the dial underneath. They have been cut to open their body.

The spear hands

The spear hands dispose of a more significant shape, with a tip as an arrow taking the shape of a triangle. This type of hand is often used for the sportive watches, known for their great readability.

The Beaubleu hands

The Beaubleu circular hand offer a more poetic vision of the time. Compare to the other hands which show an absolute time, the Beaubleu hands indicate a location which stop for an instant.

Finally, the watch’s hands, despite what we can think, are at the heart of the dial and then at the center of the design. They can make everything change about the personality of the watch.

For some models, they become a reference. Such as the circular hands of our Beaubleu’s watches.

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