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You know you’re getting into niche territory if you’re browsing for jumping hour watches to amp up your collection. Along with perpetual calendars and moonphases, the jumping hour is a marvel of mechanical engineering, which is rightly reflected in the price tag.
In most watches, the hour marker slowly sweeps across the dial, but with a jumping hour, it jumps to the next hour as soon as 60 minutes have passed. “It’s a perfect blend of modernity paired with the intricacies of mechanical movements,” says Kevin Cureau from Wristcheck.
One benefit is it’s perhaps even easier to tell time as it points directly to the current hour. Some models also use discs printed with digits, a bit like your trusty digital watch. With jumping hour watches, it’s not so much about the need, but more about the want. “As a watch enthusiast who grew up in a modern era, where the world slowly transitioned from having little to no computers to everyone managing their lives through smartphones, I can personally connect to this complication and it is one of my favorites in the horology universe,” adds Cureau.
Celebrities who have been spotted wearing a jumping hour watch unsurprisingly have that cool factor: Jon Hamm, aka Don Draper, with a Bell & Ross 123 Jumping Hour and Samuel L. Jackson with a Gérald Genta Arena Bi-Retro. So take a leap into serious watch collecting with some of the most sought after jumping hour watches in the game right now.
With the Royal Oak always stealing the spotlight, it’s easy to miss out on other gems created by Audemars Piguet, like the Jules Audemars Répetition Minutes Heure Sautante. “This piece combines the jumping hour mechanism with the minute repeater,” says Cureau. “To me, this is probably the ultimate jump hour watch; it’s classy but modern at the same time and I love this melange of old school and new school.”
No need to squint. Jumping hour watches are not always the most legible, but the MEC-1 model from young brand MEC is both easy to read and cool-looking with a glow-in-the-dark chunky hour marker. “A self-funded project by three watch enthusiasts looking to bring attention to American watchmaking,” said Cureau. “What I love most about this watch is the smoked sapphire dial allowing a look into the instantaneous jumping-hour mechanism.”
The iconic Cartier Tank à Guichet is not wasting time (literally) with other features than, well, telling time. “This one dates back to 1928 and was Cartier's first ever jumping hour,” says Karishma Karer, co-founder of The Hour Markers. “Post its launch, there have been multiple iterations of this watch but it still remains as one of the most elegantly executed jumping hours and a true Tank in every sense.” Also, Brad Pitt has one.
We like our watches with a story. “Watchmaker Josef Pallweber is widely credited for democratizing and promoting the jumping hour complication due to his work at IWC, where his advancements made it possible to mass produce the new movement he had created,” says Cureau. For the brand’s 150th anniversary, this tribute was introduced, showing the hours and minutes on rotating discs, and allowing you to wear a bit of history on your wrist.
We love Van Cleef's jewelry pieces, and every year the brand does not fail to impress with its whimsical timepieces. The Heure d’Ici & Heure d’Ailleurs watch (French for “Time Here & Time Elsewhere”) is an elegant and wearable jumping hour watch. “It’s done in a very refined way with a soft white gold case and diamond-set crown,” says Cureau. “It’s a very alluring dress watch that I would want to wear every day.”
A jumping hour complication usually comes with a high price tag, but the Christopher Ward C9 Harrison Jumping Hour is accessible. Designed in England and built in Switzerland, the brand’s timepieces are well-designed and pack a lot of value (they snagged an award at last year’s Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève). We also love its jumping hour collaboration with Fears, if you’re not afraid of a wait list.
Oui, Monsieur. “This watch caught many by surprise in 2016, but in a good way,” says Cureau. The first dedicated men’s watch with complications, the Chanel Monsieur features a jumping hour, retrograde minutes, and a three-day power reserve, and was all built in-house. “From a luxury house like Chanel, it was unexpected, but shows the dedication that Maisons are now putting into crafting beautiful timepieces.”
Unusual and unapologetic. “Just like a digital clock it displays the time horizontally, unlike most historical digital displays,” says Karer. The A.Lange & Söhne Zeitwerk features both a jumping hour and a jumping minute that work in perfect harmony. “Lange has put in extensive research and development to ensure that the jump hour and jump minutes change in precise synchronisation every hour,” adds Karer about the timepiece, a personal favourite of hers.
Oh, the details on the Andersen Genève Jumping Hours Rising Sun, which was launched last year exclusively for Japan (yes, Japan gets all the cool things). The watch splits the time between two indicators: the hours appear in a window at 12 o’clock, while the minutes are in a subdial at 6 o’clock. But it’s the exquisite craftsmanship on this watch that steals the show, with its solid rose gold guilloché dial.
This one is not available (yet!) outside of Japan, but it makes it even more desirable. We’re not sure if it looks vintage or futuristic, but we certainly love the jumping hour mechanism, with three separate discs for hours, minutes and seconds. Made in Tokyo by industrial designer-turned-watchmaker Jiro Katayama, you can admire the affordable piece (under $2,000) from afar—or it's worth booking a flight just to see.
Just like wearing a mini-car on your wrist, this number is peak geekiness, and we want it badly. Designed like a supercar, the MB&F HMX might make you wonder where the time is, as it’s kind of an optical illusion: you have to look at the lateral time display, where rotating discs on top of the movement are reflected vertically and magnified by optical prisms.
Reservoir is a French brand made in Switzerland, so you’re getting a Swiss watch with a French je-ne-sais-quoi. Interestingly, all the watches come with a retrograde minute (meaning the minute hand jumps back to zero after completing its lap) and a jumping hour. In the Netflix TV series Lupin, actor Omar Sy wears the popular Kanister model, priced at very reasonable $4,700.
This story originally appeared on British GQ with the title“Why jumping hour watches will take your collection to the next level”