Museum Collection - The List (17)

The chronological list of the 100 "must-haves" making up The Museum Collection book features the world's first self-winding wristwatch at number 17 - the Harwood Automatic. The excerpt taken from the text focuses on the origins of a project that was not necessarily brought about by a desire to avoid winding one's timepiece every day.
Click here for more infos on The Museum Collection project.

The watch that winds itself
★★★★
 

... John Harwood, a watchmaker from the Isle of Man, set about developing different winding and setting mechanisms located inside the watch in order to dispense with the need of an opening in the watch case for the winding stem. In 1924, he was awarded a Swiss patent for a movement relying on a pivoted oscillating weight that moved to and from through an arc of 270° hitting buffer spring on both sides, ...

Case 18kt yellow gold, snap-on back. 

Movement Caliber AS, self-winding, 23.4 mm, 15 jewels, hammer winding in one direction, cut bimetallic balance, flat hairspring, 18,000 vibrations per hour.