Timeline / The first world time wristwatch
The first world time wristwatch
Louis Cottier’s rotating 24-hour ring showed the time in every zone of the world at once, and Patek Philippe put it on the wrist in 1937.
- The need
- Telegraph, liners and aircraft meant people needed to know the hour somewhere else. Working it out in the head is exactly where mistakes happen.
- Made by
- The watchmaker Louis Cottier of Carouge, near Geneva, who devised the system around 1931. Patek Philippe used it in the references 515 HU and 96 HU.
- What was new
- A 24-hour ring geared to the hour hand, turning inside a fixed ring of city names, so the hour in every zone can be read at a glance.
- Worth knowing
- Cottier’s first watches on the principle were pocket watches; Vacheron Constantin ordered one in 1932. In 1953 he added a second crown for turning the city ring, the form the complication still takes.
Historian’s noteThe invention is Cottier’s, not Patek Philippe’s. 1937 is the date of the first world time wristwatch. Patek Philippe’s own records date Cottier’s first world time movement for the firm to 1937, in the pocket watch reference 605 HU; its early world time wristwatches followed within a few years. 1937 is best read as the year the complication reached Patek Philippe.
SourcesPatek Philippe Magazine · Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie
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