Automatic Winding

A rotating weight, set into motion by moving the wrist, winds the spring barrel via the gear train of a mechanical watch movement. Automatic winding was invented during the pocket watch era in 1770 by Abraham-Louis Perrelet, who created a watch with a weight swinging back and forth (that of a pocket watch usually makes vertical movements contrary to a wristwatch). The first automatic winding wristwatches, invented by John Harwood in the 1920s, utilized so-called hammer winding, whereby a weight swung in an arc between two banking pins. The breakthrough automatic winding movement via rotor began with the ball bearing Eterna-Matic in the late 1940s, and the technology hasn’t changed fundamentally since. Today we speak of unidirectional winding and bidirectionally winding rotors, depending on the type of gear train used.

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Bar or Cock Balance

A metal plate fastened to the base plate at one point, leaving room for a gear wheel or pinion. The balance is usually attached to a bar called the balance cock. Glashutte tradition dictates that the balance cock be decoratively engraved by hand like this one by Glashutte Original.

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Anti-magnetic

Mechanical movements are easily influenced by the magnetic fields often found in common everyday places. This problem is generally solved by the use of anti- or nonmagnetic components in the movement. Some companies, such as Sinn, IWC, and Bell & Ross, take things a step further and encase movements in anti-magnetic cores such as the one shown here from Sinn‘s Model 756, the Duograph. Here the inner core is easily recognizable, as are the dial, movement holder ring, and second case back. These precautions make the watch anti-magnetic to 80,000 a/M—far exceeding the norms demanded by DIN and ISO.

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