Time Pieces Time Line

Since antediluvian times, man has been using different devices to keep track of time. Though the way used for the purpose was different in different regions of the world yet the objective was single i.e. to get work done efficiently. There were times when flow of water in a specific shape vessel worked as a time piece for man. After that there came the era when water was replaced with sand. Sundials lie next in line after water and sand flow devices that made use of sunlight to tell time.

The idea was based on measuring the shadow of an indicator called gnomon on a dial and hence the device took its name sundial. Advancement in technology paved the way to develop time pieces that could tell time in a more precise manner. This is the era when clocks were invented which made use of mechanics for time telling. With the passage of time more advanced techniques were employed in clocks. Wrist watches are the compact form of those clocks with as many mechanisms working behind different wrist watches as there are for clocks.

Tracking the record of the first wrist watch takes us back to sixteenth century when in 1511 a German watch maker invented a compact clock. Peter Henlein is acclaimed for the first ever portable watch which women could carry with them in purse and men could keep in their pockets to get to know about time. The idea was quite popular and though in the start it was just the upper class to afford a watch yet it got penetrated in all the social classes over years.

In late nineteenth century addition of a strap paved the way for the modern wrist watches. Credit goes to Patek Philippe who could be called the inventor of a wrist watch. And as it may look odd today the idea was taken more of a fashion accessory than a necessity. The reason behind that is that men that time had a mindset about the items worn on wrist to be entirely feminine thing. Wrist watch was also considered to be a jewelry item than a time piece though it performed the task of time keeping as well. This is the reason the watch with band was not called a wrist watch but a wristlet.

The next milestone in the history of wrist watches is World War I when many soldiers started using the so called wristlet as it made the timekeeping process quite easy. This is when men also started using wrist watches along with women and many companies introduced unisex wrist watches to suit the taste of both genders. Today there are countless models of wrist watches that are categorized on the basis of gender, style, price, functionality and the mechanism on which the watch operates.