Watch Hands – Pointing the Way

They’re the first thing you look at and the last thing in which you take an interest: such is the cruel destiny of watch hands. They require less technical prowess than a tourbillon, sparkle less than the baseplate, and don’t boast hand guilloche levels of finishing. That said, some embody the most precious thing of all: a brand’s identity.

It’s all rather underwhelming: in most cases, ‘skeletonised’ or ‘luminous’ is about as good as it gets when it comes to claiming luxury features for watch hands. Admittedly, hand makers are much less obtrusive than names like Rolex or Patek Philippe. They include Universo (part of the Swatch Group and one of Europe’s Swiss Made leaders), Aiguilla SA, Fiedler (the oldest in the world, founded in 1848), Waeber HMS, and GVA Montres. In France, there’s La Pratique, located in Morteau, while MPI supplies hands for Asian watches. Another good reason why virtually nobody is familiar with these names is that most of them are bound by non-disclosure clauses in contracts with their clients.

In good shape(s)

The one thing that remains the same for any set of hands is that they come in two different sizes: one for the hours, the other for the minutes. Apart from that, it’s open season. Barely a century ago, watch hands were decorative components in their own right. Hands on pocket watches and the first wristwatches were infinitely more intricate than those of today. They were often known as ‘cathedral hands’ on account of their numerous expanses filled with radium, bringing to mind the stained-glass windows of cathedrals.

With the onset of the Great War, hands became altogether more functional in nature – they needed to be visible in any light. They broadened out, sometimes with square ends, to facilitate mass production and processes such as stamping and filling. The Second World War confirmed the trend; it was not until the 1950s and 1960s that hands’ aesthetic appearance once again became equally if not more important than their technical function.

From the Dauphine to the sword

It was during those years that the most typical profiles for hands emerged. The best-known are Dauphine hands. These have a narrow tip, no counterweight, and a bevelled profile allowing polishing and/or SuperLumiNova to be used. Dauphine hands were the style signature of 50s and 60s watches. The broader variety are known as glaive or ‘sword’ hands, as can be found on Patek Philippe timepieces, while narrower versions are known as baton or stick hands: a simple, unadorned straight segment, with no relief, most often to be found with more minimalist brands, such as Nomos, or in more fun applications by brands such as Hermès.

Another broad profile is the leaf-shaped feuille hand. Slender at the head, it broadens at the hips before narrowing back down to the barrel into which it’s fixed: leaf hands appear to be inspired by the shape of the human body, too. They give watches a very graceful, slender look, adding a decidedly elegant touch.

 Hallmarks

Meanwhile, some watchmakers have constructed or used hand profiles that they have gradually appropriated as their own. The best known is Breguet, with its ‘hollow-tip’ hands. These are blue-tinted by hand, terminating in an open circle that serves as a hallmark of the manufacture. Even though the design has now entered the public domain, ‘hollow-tip’ hands will always be ‘Breguet hands.’

Less tied to a single brand identity (but equally recognisable) are ‘snowflake’ hands. Why they are known as such remains a mystery – after all, there aren’t that many square snowflakes – but one brand, Tudor, has made this shape one of its signature marks. The same is true of ‘spade’ hands, an important feature in the early days for Speake-Marin, as well as of the very rare ‘serpentine’ hands still to be found at Jaquet-Droz. In similar vein, there’s the ‘Pointer Date’ hand, much beloved of Oris, tipped with a red crescent or triangle and also extremely rare, used almost exclusively by Holstein.