Higher-grade watches have traditionally used a jeweled movements, which means that jewels originally natural ruby, now synthetic ruby were actually used in the movement.
Watch sellers often try to attract their customers with the supposed value of these pieces of jewels in the watch, but they are almost not valuable at all, at least not economically speaking. Today, they are not even natural gems, but artificially manufactured sapphire or ruby, called corundum. Not necessarily.
A typical hand-wind movement today will have only 17 jewels as a full complement. Some really high-grade or ultra-thin movements will add a few extra jewels to further protect against any wear, but even these top out at jewels.
For most watch aficionados, the two brands share a similar reputation: quality watches that are neither flashy nor too expensive. All in all, due to reduced friction, the components of the system are preserved, being able to function properly and accurately for a longer time. The only jewels that are hard and smooth enough at the same time to serve as bearings of a watch are rubies, sapphires, and diamonds. However, just the former two are preferred by the makers, because diamonds were too expensive to work with.
In the past, watchmakers used natural genuine jewels as a friction point for watches but today they prefer the manufactured ones artificially grown in a laboratory. Because it is cheaper to produce and easier to obtain in the desired size and shape. The process of creating single crystal was firstly invented by the Polish chemist Jan Czochralski in Before , watches were mostly mechanical without many features and, therefore, they used from five to seven jewels.
As the watches became more complicated, the number of jewels gradually increased. Watches have no complications have about 15 jewels to 17 jewels, which are considered to be the most common type of mechanical watch these days.
Watches with complications have about 21 jewels to 26 jewels. Not only the number of the jewels is variable, but also their type. There are three main types of jewels. The former two types remain the most important ones and their number depends on the features of the watch.
The more complex the watch, the more jewels will be required. The number of jewels in a watch simply works as a friction point to reduce watch components from wearing out from the result of long-term continuous friction. An 18 jewel watch simply means there are 18 jewels in the watch and 21 jewel watch means there are 21 jewels in the watch. There is not a direct proportionality between the number of jewels and the quality of the watch. The number of jewels in a watch depends on the complexity of a watch.
For watches with more complexity, for example, a watch with chronograph and date-time complications will require more gears to run. Jewels work as bearings for the gears to run smoothly. Around 17 jewels are needed for standard watches without complications. But if a watch has features like moon phases, dual-zone or extra power, for each of them, more jewels will be needed in order to ensure the proper functioning of the system. Even though you were possibly made to think differently by your favorite watch brand.
Clearly the number of jewels in a watch is not the main factor which determines if a watch is good. In fact, the first watches that functioned properly without any jewels was made possible because they had a standard complication and a strong mainspring that ensured the good timekeeping. When the first bearings were introduced, the component that needed it the most was the one linked with the balance staff.
The impulses created from the unbalanced oscillatory movement could affect the timekeeping. Now, jewelling other parts of the system is just a way to increase the functioning time of the watch and to add features.
Each and every company chooses to jewel the compounds they found more vulnerable. At first glance, we would say that the more jewels the better. It is true only in the case when every jewel had a certain purpose and is not added just as a marketing strategy.
Bearing in mind that 17 jewels, as well as 25 jewels, can be the number of jewels needed for a good watch. Most 21 jewel watch comes with a certain complication that requires that many jewels in the watch. In order to understand what particular features a 21 jewel watch has, we can analyze a model from Seiko — the 7S26 — one of the most popular watch models from the renowned Japanese watch company.
Jewels are the small red or clear circles that are sometimes visible the faces of various watch movements. In watch movement design and engineering, the axels and pins of numerous rotating cogs, wheels, and levers are set into holes and indentations referred to as pivots. These pivots are normally lightly oiled for the parts to run smoothly, but in addition to oil, small Rubies and Sapphires are sometimes utilized.
Since it's so hard, the surface of a ruby serves as a sort of natural lubricant and essentially becomes a bearing. Original watchmakers used mined precious rubies, but nowadays the actual crystals used in watch movements are mainly synthetic.
The jewel count refers to the number of pivots with inset rubies - or "jewels"! When you see 7 or 17 jewels, the particular movement you're looking at features that number of jewel-inset pivots.
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