Complete Introduction: Watch Hands Types

The clocks had only one hand to indicate the hours in the 15th century, and people could only roughly read the time. The British watchmaker Daniel Quare introduced the concept of the minute hand in 1691.

Since the early pocket watches did not have a glass, and people need to adjust the time by moving the watch hands directly through their fingers, so the hands had to be made very firm at that time, which make the hands looked bulky and ignored the aesthetic. It was not until the mid-18th century that watch hands began to become more delicate and elegant.

Except for the shape, there are also many options of material and color, the most common materials are brass, bronze, stainless steel and gold. The black hands are due to the process of black oxidation, while the red, orange and yellow watch hands types that are often used on sports watches or chronograph watches are mainly colored by hand.

The blue steel hand is a stainless steel material that fired at high temperature and then the surface is oxidized and gradually becomes full of blue, and then cooled by a chemical solution, quench and saponify, and finally a blue oxide coating on the surface.

Let’s see the watch hands types.

Pencil Watch Hands

It is a simple hand shape, which is easy to read the time. Filled with luminous. Breitling likes to extend the tail of the pencil hand, while some brands of pencil hand do not have the extended part of the tail, such as many styles of Panerai.

Baton Watch Hands

The stick-shaped hand is named according to its shape. It looks like a big stick. According to its English pronunciation, it can also be translated into a Barton hand.

This is a very simple pointer, with a straight line design, clear lines, no cumbersome and fancy decoration, and easy to read the time. There are thick hands and thin hands. Thick hands are easy to fill with luminous and are common in professional watches such as military watches and sports watches.

For example, Patek Philippe’s Nautilus series and Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak offshore series are common thick hands. Thin hands appear more often on watches with simple dial designs, such as Piaget’s Altiplano series and NOMOS like to use thin hands.

Feuille/Leaf Watch Hands

The willow hand, as its name suggests, is as slender as a willow leaf, with a simple hand body and a soft curve, but it is not easy to design. Generally speaking, a watch with a simple dial and a retro atmosphere is suitable for matching willow hands, such as H. Moser & Cie. Blancpain’s Villeret series hollowed out willow hands.

Although the willow hand is more “feminine”, IWC, which is known as an engineer’s watch, and Rolex, which is known for its sturdiness, also have watches that use the willow hand.

Dauphine Watch Hands

Toffee hands have an asymmetrical diamond design with a pointed tip and tail, but with a thinner tip. The name of the toffee hand “dauphine” comes from the French royal family. The French crown prince’s coat of arms has a pattern of dolphins, so the French crown prince is called dauphin, and dauphine means crown princess.

The shape of the toffee hand is eye-catching, the hand tip points to the scale more accurately, and it can also be filled with luminous light. Compared with the stick hand, the luminous area is smaller. The appearance rate of toffee hands is quite high.

Dauphine hands can often be seen in the works of brands such as Patek Philippe, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Vacheron Constantin, and Roger Dubuis. Ops aslo provides a popular watch model with dauphine style hands.

Losange Watch Hands

The hand body of the diamond hand is a symmetrical diamond, and the hand shape is between the toffee hand and the knife hand. The Patek Philippe World Time series is the representative work of the diamond hand.

The classical diamond hand is only a diamond at the tip, and the hand body is slender, also known as a diamond hand (Diamond), and the upper diamond can be either hollow or solid. Some diamond hands just make the tip of the hour hand into a rhombus.

Alpha/Lancette Watch Hands

The knife-shaped hand also adopts an asymmetrical diamond-shaped design, which is very similar to the toffee hand, and the two are easily confused. The hand tail of the knife-shaped hand has a small bar-shaped extension, and the whole is like a knife, which is more elegant and gentle than the toffee hand. Lange is a loyal fan of knife-shaped hands.

The entire line of watches uses knife-shaped hands. Of course, knife-shaped hands are not unique to Lange. Many of Jacques Dro’s works also use knife-shaped hands, while Parmigiani Fleurier often uses knife-shaped hands. Make knife hands into wisps or glow in the dark.

Cathedral Watch Hands

The hand of the church hand is mainly composed of a sharp diamond with a horizontal line below it, and the whole resembles the shape of a Gothic church spire. From the 12th to the 15th century, Gothic architecture characterized by high, straight and pointed was popular in Europe, so watchmakers applied the shape of the spire of the Gothic church to the watch hands, with a simple shape and a strong sense of humanism and religion.

The horizontal line of the church hand can be positioned high or low, and the size of the rhombus and the angle of the inner corner can also be adjusted as desired. LANG&HEYNE from Germany loves to use church hands.

Epee/Sword Watch Hands

The name of the sword-shaped hand is also very vivid. The hand is long and shaped like a sharp sword, but it is more heroic than the diamond-shaped hand. The sword-shaped hand is also very easy to confuse with the pencil hand. The hand body of the pencil hand is straight, while the hand body of the sword-shaped hand is narrow and wide.

The sword-shaped hand has a wide shape and is also easy to fill a large area of ​​luminous light, which was specially used by the British Navy diving watch. Cartier’s blue balloon series, Tank series, etc. use sword-shaped hands, while Chopard’s lmperiale series makes the sword-shaped hand’s “sword edge” particularly wide.

Eventail/Morderne Watch Hands

Fan-shaped hands, also known as “feather hands”, are also known as “modern hands” compared to the complex hand shapes of traditional pocket watches, but they are a little more classical than the commonly used pointers.

Confused with sword-shaped hands, upon closer inspection, fan-shaped hands have a thin rod-shaped extension at the tip of the hands compared to sword-shaped hands. Ruibao’s Timemaster series uses a lot of fan-shaped hands, and Arnold & Son’s Royal series also likes to use fan-shaped hands.

Pear Watch Hands

The rosette hand is somewhat similar to the spade hand, and is mostly made of blue steel. The tip of the hour hand looks like a peach heart, and some say it looks like a cobra, so it is commonly called “rice shovel head”, but I think it is more like an ancient lady’s forehead with a little flower yellow , adds a variety of styles to the entire face plate, but is not too prominent, subtle and profound.

The minute hand will have a slight depression in the nearly one-third position, and the “waist” is just right. Rose pear hands are commonly found in brands such as Glashütte Original and SPEAKE-MARIN.

Arrow/Fleche Watch Hands

The arrow watch hand type is triangular, and the whole feels like an arrow, and the triangle can be filled with luminous light. Thick and eye-catching arrow-shaped hands are called broad-arrow hands, and they are the most common in Omega’s Seamaster series.

Sometimes, the hour and minute hands are made into broad-arrow hands, and only the minute hand is made into broad-arrow hands. In addition, Greubel Forsey also favors broad arrow hands.

Spade Watch Hands

The hand body of the black pick hand is slender and the shape of the tip of the hand resembles the black color of a playing card. There are many opinions about the color of black picks, one says that spades represent spears, symbolizing soldiers; the other says that black picks represent olive leaves, symbolizing peace. Because the style of the spade hand is too classical, it is suitable for retro watches.

Squelette / Skeleton Watch Hands

Skeleton hands can also be called snake-eye hands, because the tip of the hour hand is like the evil slender eyes and the aggressive tongue of a cobra, and the minute hand is like the tail of a snake. Skeleton hands are evolved from rosette hands.

The hands can be hollowed out or painted with luminous light. Skeleton hands were mostly used in sports and professional pocket watches in the early years, and are also one of the earliest and most common luminous hands in military watches.

The distinction between hour and minute hands is more obvious than that of stick hands. The Type20 replica series launched in the past two years in Zenith’s Pilot pilot series uses a variant design of the skeleton hand.

Mercedes Watch Hands

The Mercedes-Benz hand is somewhat similar to the snake-eye hand. The tip of the hand has a graphic similar to the Mercedes-Benz logo, but the two are slightly different. The three-pointed star in the middle of the Mercedes-Benz logo is sharper than that of the Mercedes-Benz hand.

At the beginning of the design, the Mercedes-Benz hand wanted to use a stable support structure to improve the problem of easy breakage caused by the excessively large luminous area of ​​the watch, which is more common in diving watches. Rolex’s application of Mercedes-Benz hands is particularly popular.

The Mercedes-Benz hands are found in Rolex’s Deepsea Explorer, GMT Master, Submariner and Yacht Master for women. The slightly raised Mercedes hand at the top contrasts with the rounded scale, gleaming in the dark.

Louis XV Watch Hands

The Louis XV hand is a very fancy pointer, with a lot of thorns, complex patterns, very decorative, suitable for retro watches. There are also Louis XVI hands, which are more luxurious and complicated than Louis XV hands. As for why it was named Louis XV, it is estimated that this hand shape obviously has a Rococo style.

The Rococo style is dominated by zigzag curves and fine and delicate carvings. The keynote of the shape is convex curves, and S-shaped corners are often used. This artistic style is also known as the Louis XV artistic style because it was highly praised by the then French King Louis XV. The FriedrichAugust I of LANG&HEYNE uses the Louis XV hand.

Moon/Pomme Watch Hands

Breguet’s blue steel pointer was designed by the master watchmaker Mr. Breguet in 1783. It is also one of the most classic pointer designs. There is a hollow ring near the tip of the pointer at 1/4 of the pointer. It is an eccentric moon shape. Lost in style. The Breguet hand has even become part of the Breguet brand LOGO.

Breguet hands are a recognized classic, even a watch full of modern style, matching Breguet hands will add elegance to it. It is not just that Breguet uses this hand shape. Various variants of Breguet hands have appeared in the watch works of many brands, such as many artistic watches of Cartier, while URBAN JURGENSEN only makes the hour hand close to the hand tip. shaped like a magnifying glass.

Snake Watch Hands

Don’t think that the watch hand can only be straight, it can also be curved. The snake-shaped hand appeared in pocket watches as early as the 19th century. The hand body of the snake-shaped hand is like a snake that bends forward, which can play a decorative role. Zoom in through the snake hand.

Many brands have used snake-shaped hands, but the interpretations of snake-shaped hands are different, and the sinuous curve and the design of the pointer tip are different. Among them, Bovet can be said to be the most loyal fan of snake-shaped hands, Blancpain Snake-shaped hands also often appear in the moon phase watch of the , but they are often used for the calendar hand, not the hour and minute hands.

Heart Watch Hands

Bovet’s R6cital 9 Tourbillon MissAlexaradra has a half “heart” at the bottom of the two hands, which can only be revealed when the two hands meet. “Heart”, the meeting of time, the meeting of the whole heart, Doromantic! Girls should like this hand shape very much.

Compass Watch Hands

Jacques Dro officially said that the two hands of the Grande Heure Gmt are compass-shaped, the red gold hand indicates the local time, and the blue steel hand indicates the destination time. When the two hands coincide in the same time zone, they can be superimposed into a two-color hand.

Wing Watch Hands

The hands of the Royal Blue Tourbillon watch in Athens are very cute, looking like “inflated” willow hands and fat little angel wings.

Breguet Skeleton Watch Hands

The shape of the hour and minute hands of the DB25 LTTourbillon released by DE BETHUNE last year is somewhat similar to a Breguet hand, but the hand body is hollowed out and has a radian. Obstructs vision.

Retract Watch Hands

Many years ago, British watchmakers Vardon and Stedman once made pocket watches with retractable hands. Parmigiani found inspiration in the process of restoring this pocket watch, making the hands of the watch retractable, which can follow the oval case. The curve changes and changes its own length.

Water-drop Watch Hands

The shape of this kind of pointer is also very unique. It looks like a drop of water is about to drip down. .

Quant Watch Hands

The hands of this Hydroscaph H1 from CLERC are shaped like a paddle, with a slender stick-shaped extension at the bottom and a wide upper part, which complements this diving watch.