How to Buy a Luxury Watch Guide: What does it all mean?
Welcome to part one of our three post series. These posts will be discussing various aspects of Watches! Part one below is an introduction to the terminology that you will come across when shopping for a luxury watch. Part two is a little bit more about you and what types of watches you might want to go for (live on 12th July!). Part three discusses the costs and what you should get for you money (live on 22nd of July!).
Buying a watch is one thing, but when you enter the arena of luxury watches you'll find yourself bombarded with a whole new set of parameters and various terms that you need to understand. Here is a basic glossary of the terms you'll come across most often when you're looking at the luxury watch market. These should help you to understand what it all means and what you should be looking out for.
Horology
This describes both the art and science behind what we understand of the measurement of time. It includes not just time measurement itself, but also the design work and construction of timepieces.
Chronometer
You'll see this term a lot when you're reading about the watches at the high end of the market. A chronometer is a precision instrument and not all watches are chronometers. There are Swiss laws governing the description and before a watch can be labelled a chronometer it must pass a set of stringent tests and obtain certification from an authority such as the Swiss Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres (COSC).
Chronograph
This term refers to a watch fitted with a stopwatch function. Many will have two or three separate subdials that measure the passage of time in hours, minutes or seconds and can be used to accurately record and time an event.
Self-Winding
Self-winding luxury watches are those with mechanical movements where the mainspring is automatically wound by the natural movement of the wearer. Many mechanical watches are self-winding. The opposite would be the manual watch, for which the owner needs to physically wind the mechanism to keep it going.
Quartz
The movement inside the watch case may be powered by quartz crystal. Quartz movements are the most accurate in time-keeping.
Water-Resistant
Water-resistant watches will be marked as such and it means they have been tested to withstand water penetration. Luxury watches often fall into this category, with some being produced specifically to withstand the water pressure at quite high depths. Diving watches may be fitted with a helium valve. Another term you may come across is ATM, which refers to atmosphere and is a unit of pressure used to indicate water resistance.
Movement
This is the term used to describe the inner mechanism of the watch, which may be either quartz or mechanical, manual or self-winding.
Complication
This term refers to add-on features that a watch may have, as opposed to simple movements that just include the basic function of telling the time. An example of a complication may be the display of the moon phase. The term 'complication' refers only to mechanical watches rather than digital watches, for which extra features are simply called 'functions'.
So there you have it, if you need to know more then please do give us a call, it may be that we can help you with the funding for your new luxury watch by purchasing your old one! Keep your eye out for our next installment on the 12th of July!
