24 hour watches?

Flashwatches

So why do watches only have 12 hour dials? well this goes back to the sun dial, and because the sun dial was only effective during daylight hours it only had a 12 hour scale. But there are watches out there with 24 hour dials where the hour hand makes 1 revolution in 24 hour as opposed to 2 revolutions in a "normal" 12 hour watch. They have been around for quite a while but were never as popular as 12 hour watches.

So what do you guys think of 24 hour watches, do you have any, or is there one that you really want to collect? Do you like "12" at the top of the dial or "24" at the top. The traditional 12 hour watch has midnight at the top of the watch, while some 24 hour watches midnight is at the bottom of the dial, the reason being that the hour hand follows the path of the sun, so at 12 midday the hands point up.

Here are a few pics of 24 hour watches.















Thanks to http://www.glycineairman.info/ and http://www.24hourwatch.info/ for the pictures.

Wibbs

I've seen the Airman one alright and an old helvetia(IIRC) watch from the 30's and a more recent Breitling;

Apparently astronaut Scott Carpenter asked specifically for the re design.

I like the idea of them, the only thing for my addled brain is the hand positions would need a complete rethink to recognise them at a glance.

emo72

yea wibbs, unfortunately my brain is too adled to even attempt to get my head around them. but i do love the space watches, like speedmaster vostok or fortis.

funny thing is my phone or anything digital is always set to a 24 hr format.

Wibbs

emo72 wrote: »

yea wibbs, unfortunately my brain is too adled to even attempt to get my head around them.

Welcome to the club

but i do love the space watches, like speedmaster vostok or fortis.

Ditto but I'd add the first one which was a Sturmanskie model(that is quite cheap to buy still) that oul Yuri wore on the first manned flight and for the US, technically it was a Heuer chrono stopwatch on Shepards flight. And I think there was a Hamilton Chrono IIRC that one of the moon lads wore when his Omega's lunette detached(see what I did there ) and stopped on an EVA. The othe Chrono worked fine I gather. A few of them flew Rolex's too, as personal watches.

m4r10

This is my attempt to try and get used to them:





I had the opportunity to buy a Fortis 24 a while ago, hesitated and somebody else snapped it, but it was a little bit on the small side for me. Now I got this Alpha and I'm quite pleased with it.

peasant

Nope, sorry ...doesn't work for me at all. Brain just derails trying to make sense of it.

And why should it? This is a "problem" that can be fixed these days for under nineninetynine (ninetynine)

Flashwatches

I like the idea of 24 hour watches, but like a lot of people I just can't see my self reconising the time at a glance. But I have a friend who swears by them and says that you get used to them quite quickly. I have never owned one so I guess I have to just take his word for it.

Greenman

peasant wrote: »

Nope, sorry ...doesn't work for me at all. Brain just derails trying to make sense of it.

And why should it? This is a "problem" that can be fixed these days for under nineninetynine (ninetynine)

I'm with you Peasant, although I like the beauty of all those timepieces but the Casio dose it for me.:):):)