75 Watch Terms You Need to Know - A Crash Course to Watch Collecting Terminology

what's going on guys teddy baldustar here in this video we have a long one a video that's probably overdue in some aspect i've done something of this sort in the past but i wanted to do it better and more thoroughly and that is looking at around 60 to 70 watch terms that i think every watch enthusiast should know i don't even know the exact number because there's so many this is going to be a longer video rather comprehensive so buckle up strap in you know get ready for some wash terms getting thrown at you really quickly just for the nature of how long this one is going to be i'm going to try to go just breeze through them a little bit quicker than normal but we're looking a lot of terms here and going to provide commentary wherever else needed so how this is going to be broken down basically in four parts at the beginning just more basic watch terms to look at then moving at basic movement terms to know then move into complications and then finally looking at different finishing terms as well in addition to that some of these terms are gonna be rather patronizing to some that might be a bit more established in their collecting journey or just knowing about watches so don't take offense to it i would just rather be able to have this be completely overviewing everything rather than leaving out things and having just obvious submissions when going about this process now before we get too far into this i do want to mention did have some amazing new releases on teddyballstar.com of some great watches so first going to the new releases section of the site you can see a lot of those so the chrono h for example from hamilton a manual wine version of the intramatics that i think have some great wearability as well as offering a bit of kind of that classic look that many people associate with the brand just it worked on a review actually went to lancaster pennsylvania where hamilton was based for many years also saw some new brothel captain cooks become a release some affordable options from the timex q collection and much much more so definitely check it out head over to teddybaldustar.com full authorized dealer of all the brands that we carry and help us make this content all possible okay so now to begin let's look at some basic watch terms and probably the best place to start is with a case so a case is the central construction or body of a watch usually made of a metal that contains the movement and houses all the other elements together now when flipping the watch over you also will have your case back so the case back protects the movement and also provides access in the event of servicing to that movement some are closed as in made of a solid material and can be snapped on or screwed down exhibition case backs on the other end are transparent and allows a view of that movement within typically coming in a mineral as well as sapphire now this one seems pretty obvious but still want to mention it thickness so this measures the distance between the top of the crystal and the bottom of the case back and is an important figure in terms of wearability of course and these are measured in millimeters as well as many of the other terms around just measurement of the case in addition we also have lugs so these are protruding from both of the top and the bottom of the watch and are extending out from the case which essentially allow for a spot to attach a watch strap or a bracelet to the case itself now for those that want to switch out their straps and this is really great if you want to take advantage of just kind of giving your watch some different looks then you have lug width so this is the distance between the lugs where the strap or the bracelet can be attached it's measured in millimeters and usually it's somewhere between 16 to 24 that is not always the case but in pretty much 95 to 99 of cases that is going to be the case you also have integrated bracelets so this is when lug width is not going to matter it's basically a term in which a bracelet or some type of strap is designated specifically it's custom for the case itself a very popular example of this is many of the high-end sports watches that you'll find from ap with the royal oak also made from a more affordable end with the aquas now moving on to straps so this is a band made traditionally of leather rubber or nylon or some other fabric material which affixes the watch to the wrist so don't get that confused with the bracelet we'll talk about that in a moment now for deployment buckles not deployment deployment buckles so this is a clasp that can be fitted to a standard leather or textile strap often seen in more upmarket dressier watches that unlike a pin buckle which is typical a deployant opens in a butterfly manner in order to preserve the strap from wear and as an important note when looking at deployments you can actually just fit these on a traditional watch strap so any other leather strap that has a pin buckle as long as you know that distance at that buckle point you can put on a deployant strap something i don't think many people think about as well as just straps in general so it's just something to really know now from straps to bracelets this is one where i see a lot of newbies kind of getting screwed up bracelet metal band it's composed of links which can be added or removed to create a custom fit while keeping the watch to the wrist versus a strap which is going to be made more of a separate material outside of metal now when talking about bracelets we also have to look at a clasp so this is the closure for a watch bracelet now this is where a number of different kinds can be included so we have fold over push button and many others this is really found in a lot of sports watches and there's also sometimes extensions built into these class whether it's micro adjustment or a diver extension to go over a wetsuit in a diving environment now perhaps one of the most overlooked but also one of the most important measurements is lug to lug so this is the overall height of a watch measured vertically from you guessed it lug tip to lug tip and it's a crucial measurement in understanding how a watch is going to fit on your wrist the only problem here is many manufacturers don't actually provide this information on their websites or in their press materials which is pretty annoying but still very important you can typically find it online so then we have our crystal so this is the transparent lens on the front of the watch can be found in plexiglas acrylic has a light mineral as well as sapphire and keeps the watch protected as well as providing a clean view of the dial within we'll talk a bit more about coatings on these in a bit so then we have our bezel so this is the circle ring surrounding the crystal as well as the dial that can include markings in addition can also be built to be rotating seen in many dive watches or pilot swatches out there or could be fixed as it is on the say rolex explorer or a rolex explorer ii but also has markings on it so a lot of different variations there then we also have bezel inserts so this is the circular ring set within the bezel when you're looking at more of those rotating options where the markers are located and inserts are typically made of either aluminum stainless steel titanium ceramic or sapphire just to name a few there then we have our crown so these are typically located at the three o'clock side of the case and probably ninety percent of instances and the crown allows the winding and setting of the watch movement some are screw down while others are more traditional push pull so really going to depend on the amount of water resistance required as well as the style of the watch itself now pushers are buttons or actuators located most often on the three clock side of the watch typically at the two and the four that allow for operating specific functions mostly a chronograph but there will sometimes be functions for maybe some high complications for perpetual calendars moon phases and things of that sort now the dial is the central visual element of a watch used for indicating the time with the help of the hands dowels can be made of a variety of different materials you got enamel dials lacquer dials many different materials are going to be used there on the dial surface but it's not the face it's the dial now to assist the dial we have the hands that are attached at the center of the dial typically and are used to actually tell the time with the shorter hand of course being for the hour longer hand for the minutes and another hand for tracking the seconds typically set at the center as well but not always also on the watch time i have right now it's got a sub seconds on it so i know mr ryan that's a great example of that execution then we have water resistance so water resistance is the rating of the depth or equivalent pressure watch case can actually withstand before it actually takes on water it's typically measured in meters and i've done a video kind of going through a bit more details on this water resistance is one of those things that's a bit misleading so check out my video eight things you should know about watches and that will go into more detail about that as well as some crystals and some other things that are going to be helpful for you to know now that we've went through the basic terms around the case let's move into the movement and look at the things there because many of the watches that we talk about here are mechanical utilize actual mechanical movements so there's a lot to learn here now to start off let's look at a movement or a caliber so this is the heart of the watch that helps with actually tracking the time so these can be quartz manual automatic or something a little bit different out there like the grand seiko spring drive just to name a few here now the most common movement that you're gonna find on the market now today is going to be a quartz watch this is a type of movement that tracks the time using the rapid vibration i mean rapid vibration of a quartz crystal caused by electrical impulse stemming from a battery that must be periodically replaced generally requires less parts as many quartz watches are going to be more accurate over a month than many mechanical watches are going to be over a day so a lot of things go in favor of course watch that said on the flip side if you want something more traditional that's when you go for a mechanical wash and this is a watch that's going to utilize mechanical power to indicate the time through a use of gears springs screws and other parts and mechanical watches come in two primary types you have your automatics and then you have your manual winding movements now start with those manual watches so also known as hand winding movements these keep time using stored energy from a coiled spring known as a main spring which requires the wearer to power the watch through that rotation of the crown and then you also have your automatic movements now this is a type of mechanical watch movement as well that utilizes stored energy from a coiled mainspring to tell the time but achieves the winding of the spring through a different process so with an oscillating weight or also most commonly known as a rotor that will allow the mainspring to coil up although many automatic movements also can be hand wound as well when rotating that crown so as mentioned a rotor or an oscillating weight this is the mass that moves along with the wear of a watch typically is going to be attached with a ball bearing system and will wind the mainspring of the movement with the rotation during wear on the wrist for power reserve that is the amount of time a given mechanical watch movement will continue to track and show the time after being fully wound and there's sometimes indicators for this which we'll get to in a little bit now jewels are precious stones used in high wear areas of a watch movement to resist the wear and tear caused by friction more jewels don't always mean a better movement just something to consider there now hacking or stop seconds this is something you probably hear myself say quite a bit in reviews this is when a movement will actually stop at the farthest out position when pulling out the crown so basically stopping the balance wheel to allow a user to set precise time of that seconds hand this isn't always a feature in many watches especially even the high end but is very nice if you want to get precise time now for a base plate or also known as a main plate this is the structure upon which all of the other movement elements are built really that starting function that main plate base plate makes a lot of sense then moving to bridges these are the structural components of a watch movement that will support other elements screwed to that main plate now you heard that idea of a main spring the main spring is housed within a barrel this is the protective element that houses that and a mainspring is a large spring that once coiled either by hand winding the movement or the rotation of a rotor will release stored energy down a gear train and powers the mechanical watch movement also before i get too far into this i'm going to go through a lot of the details of a watch movement but if you want to see the actual differences between a quartz watch as well as a mechanical watch i will link down below to the eight things to know about your watch a lot of great info in there as well i would imagine just going to that video right after this if you've not seen it now gear train is a series of gears that is truly the backbone of a movement it transfers the energy from a mainspring to the escapement and the balance wheel now moving to the escapement wheel this is a gear with protruding teeth that drives the energy from the gear train to a balance wheel now by way of a pallet fork with an unlocking and locking motion now this pallet fork is a lever shaped device that has two pallets that engage with the escapement wheel teeth and with the help of an impulse jewel on that balance wheel will actually allow the movement of this entire watch now for a balance wheel this is the wheel that rotates back and forth acting as the heartbeat of the watch movement while also providing the frequency which will in turn provide the basis of time keeping with the help of the hairspring so the hairspring or also known as the balance spring is a flat spiral shape spring that provides forces causing consistent back and forth oscillation of the bounce wheel these can be made of several different materials nowadays many are using silicon as it is way more anti-magnetic compared to some more traditional hair springs and now for the escapement as you might have inferred so far it is all the components at the end of the gear train that are responsible for transferring stored energy from the gear train in a precise manner to keep time the most popular in centuries old is the lever escapement which uses an anchor shaped lever utilizing those two pallets that serves as the connection between the escapement wheel and the balance now an alternative that you also might run into when looking at escapements and pretty popular now is going to be a coaxial escapement so that uses a system of three pallets in order to reduce sliding friction and a movement as this less distance traveled for those pallets and really maximizes that service interval and not needing to service as much as well as lubricate the movement now this was invented by dr george daniels famous english watchmaker and his invention is now been adopted by omega kind of lasting his legacy and is featured in many of their calibers for frequency this is a measure of the speed of a balance wheel in beats or oscillations within a mechanical watch movement i've done an entire video on this if you want more details about it but most often it's expressed in beats per hour vibrations per hour or hurts so hertz are going to be the full back and forth movement of that balance per second commonly here three hertz four hertz five hertz things of that sort definitely check out that video if you want more details on that then we also have amplitude and this is the measure of the maximum number of degrees of watch balance wheel rotates in a particular direction as it oscillates back and forth and to tie all this motion to the front of the dial we then have the motion works and this is the portion of the watch responsible for transferring the release of energy from the movement to appear on the front of the dial with the movement of the hands in addition this is also responsible for helping the user actually set the proper time manually then we have our third party or bosch movements these are watch movements supplied by a company other than the actual watch manufacturer who specialize only in producing movements for the other brand now some of those popular companies in this space are going to be etta selita miyota just to name a few i also have done a very comprehensive video kind of giving a lay of the land of all the third party movements out there then you also have your in-house movement so these are watch movements produced by the watch manufacturer within one of their facilities generally the process is going to require extensive r d to really develop these movements and have just the manufacturing capabilities to be vertically integrated that said this is sometimes a bit of a gray area on what really constitutes in-house but for lack of a better term or definition this is probably the best now i want to look at some complications and complications are basically any function of a watch outside of telling the time now the most common complication is going to be a date complication which will actually display the numeric date of a given month usually located in a window or an aperture at the three o'clock position but commonly can be found in many other positions say the four o'clock six o'clock uh really is the most popular and then you also find a day-date which is going to add a day of the week to that date now we have our annual calendar so this is a complication that in addition to the time it's also going to indicate the day the date the month and also the moon phase in many instances it's going to do that annually however it does not take into account leap year so it is going to require you to set manually at the end of every february however if that is too much work for you you can also look at a perpetual calendar so this takes everything that an annual calendar has except it does take into account leap years as well so this will be good for as long as you keep it running and typically many perpetual calendars work at least from a modern perspective until the year 2100 some even longer now one of the most common watch types as well as complications is a chronograph and this is an integrated stopbox function built into a watch in addition to regular timekeeping functions typically accomplish with pushers on the side of the case at stop and start the sub registers on the dial and keep track of that central chronograph seconds now for a flyback chronograph this is a special type of chronograph which is not going to require that stopping and starting instead a single actuation of the pusher will simultaneously restart the chronograph then you have one of my favorite words a retropont also known as a split second or a double chronograph and this allows for timing multiple intervals with the help of another chronograph running seconds hand now for a couple scales that you'll find on the outside of a chronograph dial now a telemeter is a scale used to measure the approximate distance between a user and an event that can both be seen and hurt probably the best example of this is going to be from modern context is going to be lightning and thunder so when you see lightning your telemeter going when you hear the thunder boom stop it and that will tell you how far away that lightning is from you in your location then you have your pulsa meter or pulsometer it's a scale used to measure the pulse rate or number of heartbeats over a period of time that one's pretty self-explanatory but then you have a tachymeter and this is probably the least useful of the three this is a scale used to measure the speed of a person or thing over a period of time pulling up say a speed master as an example say we want to measure how fast a car was going in one kilometer so we could start our chronograph second hand at the beginning of the kilometer and say it took 30 seconds to complete that kilometer we would know that that car was going 120 kilometers per hour on average but this can also be used for different units of measurement like miles as well and say they didn't go a full mile you could then just use simple division to determine how fast they were actually going next up we have dual time so this is a display that helps track two separate time zones on a dial at the same time on a 12 hour scale usually this is a separated feature with a sub-dial or an indicator to display the second time zone like with the patek travel time for an example there then on the flip side we have a gmt and the gmt includes an additional hand or indicator in a 24 hour format to track an additional time zone it tends to typically include a rotating bezel as well that can be used for quickly cross referencing an additional time zone as well in different parts of the world this of course is most commonly seen with the gmt master ii family then for another complication of this type we have a world time so this is a complication that has a 24 hour scale but it also includes corresponding cities to represent every time zone in order to see different times in the world at a glance now for one of the coolest looking complications uh out there that is the tourbillon so this is the creation by abraham louis breguet i have a full video on this it was invented in the 18th century that house a traditional escapement and a balance in a cage and that would allow the full rotation of that balance and escapement 360 degrees as a way to counteract positional air and pocket watches but nowadays with watches being strapped to our wrist this is not as much of a concern and basically turbines are reserved for essentially just flexing your horological muscles as a manufacturer now we have a minute repeater so this is a function of a watch that shines in a series of tones to indicate the time by way of internal gongs and hammers and the traditional way to tell the time is a chime for every hour then you have every 15 minutes and then an individual minute chime as well there also are decimal minute repeaters and i can actually show one of those so only difference there is it's going to repeat at that second chiming tone every 10 minutes rather than every 15 minutes then you have an alarm and when you talk about it from a mechanical perspective it's much different this is an independently set mechanical function where an audible alarm will sound at a specified time and also we can show a cool example of this and how this works as well with a cool jlc memobox mariner [Music] now for a moon phase this is one of my favorite complications essentially just an indicator on the dial that graphically shows the different phase of the moon and then power reserve i mentioned what it is now for an indicator this is typically found on the dial but not always but it demonstrates how much power remains from the uncoiling mainspring that we talked about within that movement grand seiko is very famous for utilizing this essentially acts as like a fuel gauge that you'll find on your car except on your watch it's pretty cool sometimes you'll see it on the case back as well but most commonly will be on the front of the dial then you have your jumping hours so this is a function which will have an instantaneous jump of the hour either using a hand or an indicator following the 60 minutes passing all right so now we've covered a lot of the bases we've looked at complications basic terms as well as movement terms now let's get into actual finishing of movements as well as cases as this is another thing the thing's important to know finishing what is finishing now this is the method of achieving an improvement to the visual appearance of a watch case the hands applied markers or the movement components and one of the most common methods of finishing a case is going to be brushing this is a method of finishing evidence by a grain or textured brushing on a metallic surface in a consistent directional pattern then on the flip side we have polishing so this is going to contrast quite well from brushing it's a finishing method demonstrated with a high level of reflected shine achieved by a buffing process so both of those are going to be done on a wheel one buffing one's going to be polishing very similar actually did a video with carson he's a watchmaker he kind of talked through this process quite a bit and actually showed how this would work now for a completely different execution we have blasting so this is when taking a case making it more matte and its appearance and is conducted by bombarding a actual case with fine sand or bead-like materials now we talked about crystals let's talk about anti-reflective coatings so this is the coating on a wash crystal intended to limit the distortion and reflection that can take place when viewing a watch under certain lighting conditions now this can be applied in a few different areas on the top most commonly being found on the underneath side of the crystal and sometimes applied in both instances on the top and the bottom probably the most common example of this will be with the omega c master diver 300 or say zen 556 or many zen watches now we have pvd now this stands for physical vapor deposition and is a process where metal is vaporized in order to apply a thin coating to a watch case usually in black but also can be found in other just colors and variants which can add a subdued look an additional layer of scratch resistance to a watch case it's not harder than the base material and there's a lot of detail you can go into about pvds i'm not gonna be able to go to all of it in this video but it is susceptible to chipping but it really does come down to the manufacturer and who is actually making it because there's different just levels of its execution so you can't just see pvd and expect the same thing from every single place then you also have dlc so this is diamond-like carbon and this is another coating technique very similar in its execution but is generally considered more durable and premium compared to pvd just generally speaking not always the case but dlc is a harder case treatment because it has that higher level of hardness because it is based off of actual diamond hardness as diamonds on the hardest scale of course is going to be at the top all right so now let's look at some movement finishing techniques and terms so first we have anglage so this is a polished beveled surface on the edge of an actual movement component typically found on bridges mostly now next we have prolage so this is a series of circular patterns which overlap often covering larger portions of a watch movement like usually the base plate or the main plate next you have graining so this is a method of leaving a finely textured appearance similar to brushing but deeper in a particular direction it can be circular linear or in a sun ray type effect now we have cote de janeiro geneva stripes or geneva waves or sometimes can fluctuate depending on where you're at in the world this is a series of parallel lines engraved into a movement surface either by hand or with a lathe and in many instances will feature a grain-like finish within now we also have guillotine so guilloche is a decorated technique involving a repetitive mechanically engraved pattern resembling a braided or interlaced ribbon via engine turning i have a video coming up with rgm it probably could have come out after this video just given how long this one's probably gonna take to edit uh so definitely check it out they're one of the only people that are really doing that type of stuff in america next up we have bluing so this is a method of heat treatment most often applied to screws but also sometimes to wash hands on the front not all blue hands are doing this technique of course but that turns a metal into a vibrant blue color while making the surface harder as well and now our final definition engraving so this is the technique of etching into a material commonly of course metal into the movement case back or other part of a watch well all right guys i don't even like hearing my voice that long so i only imagine how you guys feel hearing my voice for that long but i hope you didn't find this video helpful if you did please give it a thumbs up really would appreciate that this was a lot of just information to codify put together uh so really would uh appreciate that thumbs up also subscribe hit the bell icon and uh you know out of all of this you learn anything new i hope so it was a lot of information to put together is there anything else that you can think of in the comments down below that people should just be aware of of course i'll link to some other helpful videos that we've done in the past on the channel to kind of just further in this but hopefully this could be a good reference and you can come back to time and time again and even if you're farther along in your collecting journey maybe you'll learn something new here today also guys definitely go check out those new releases at teddybalders.com we also do have a giveaway going on as well i think that's probably will still be going on by the time that this video is posted so definitely take advantage of that probably not going to be open for much longer so i will link to it down below if it's closed it'll be indicated on the form in addition be sure to follow on instagram as well as be subscribed here if you do want to see updated with just more giveaway opportunities in the future but guys thank you again so much for watching be well and i'll see you all very soon

Channel: Teddy Baldassarre

Views: 620,476

Keywords: teddy baldassarre, teddy baldassarre watch, teddy watch, teddy watch review, teddy watch education, watch terminology, watch terms, watch definitions, hodinkee, talking watches, bark and jack, omega aqua terra, watchmaking, watchmaker, types of watch movements, watch parts, watch complications, horology, haute horology, luxury watches, best luxury watches, best watch under 5000, best watch under 3000, best watch under 1000, watch guide, watch collecting, watch enthusiast

Id: PHis9l8cJks

Length: 26min 2sec (1562 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 30 2021