How a watch works
The five jobs every watch performs, from the mainspring to the hands, and how quartz solves the same problem differently.
History
How a clock became small enough to carry, accurate enough to navigate by, and cheap enough for anyone, then survived quartz.
The money side
What watch companies publish about revenue, profit and advertising, explained from scratch. Almost no brand publishes its own numbers.
Make your own
How watches are made for other people's brands: published minimum orders, what the law requires, and what the record shows.
Standards
What the words on a watch legally mean — Swiss Made, chronometer, a depth rating — quoted from the ordinances and standards themselves.
Where to start
If you have never taken a watch apart in your head, How a watch works makes the rest legible. If a term is unfamiliar anywhere on this site, its first use links to the glossary, which defines every term from the body that governs it, and says so plainly where no authority defines one.