For The Ritualist: Manually Wound Watches

Open your eyes. Turn off your alarm. Sit up in bed. Grab your watch from the nightstand. Wind it. If there is a purer daily ritual for the watch lover, I don’t know it. While some will tout the benefits and ease of use of self-winding mechanical watches, there’s a romanticism to the ownership of all things hand-wound that have led the category to continue to flourish to this day. As an added perk, those manually wound watches with display casebacks offer a richer view into their movements than their automatic siblings.

Whether at the entry level or all the way up into the “holy trinity,” there are plenty of manually wound watches in the market these days of all shapes and sizes. This is by no means a category limited to the old and stodgy dress watches of decades past. Modern makers at every end of the spectrum take advantage of the slender proportions of mechanical movements devoid of winding rotors, and as you’ll see below, the results are consistently fantastic.

Omega Speedmaster DSOTM Apollo 8

While I’ll always be the first to admit that I’m not much of a “Speedy guy,” the Omega Dark Side of the Moon Apollo 8 and its partially open-worked dial won me over the minute I first came across it in person. Of its big selling features, the caliber 1869 (derived from the 1861) is a manually wound derivative of Omega’s co-axial chronograph movement, which helps slim down its case when compared to its automatic counterparts. Where the automatic versions tend to feel a little pudgy on the wrist, the Apollo 8 has a more comfortable on-wrist profile (especially if you have smaller wrists in the first place).

Cartier Santos 100 Skeleton

There were so many options to choose from when looking at manually wound Cartier references, but the palladium cased Santos 100 Skeleton proved to be the winner. Before we go anywhere, the fact that it’s cased in Palladium—one of the rarer case materials out there—already sets the Santos 100 Skeleton apart from its competitors, but there’s more to it than that. The way Cartier manages to turn its mainplate and bridges into the classic Roman numerals for its hour indices at 12, three, six, and nine in this piece is so damned impressive, and a detail that gets overlooked far more often than it should.

Panerai Radiomir 1940

Taking a step back to something a bit more “classic” in style, it’s hard to go wrong with Panerai in this category. The brand is one of few mainstream luxury brands that have offered more manually wound watches than they have automatic ones in recent times. This all goes back to the brand’s early adoption of the Unitas (now ETA) 6497 movements for their watches way back in the early days. Much as countless other brands used hand-wound movements back in the day, when Panerai saw its revival in 1998, that nostalgia of hand-winding was carried forward. Even after the move to the production of in-house manufacture movements, as seen in this 42mm Radiomir 1940, most of the brand’s catalog forgoes the idea of automatic movements. In this modern form, the P.1000 caliber uses an antimagnetic Glucydur balance wheel and delivers a 72h power reserve using a pair of mainspring barrels.

Lange & Sohne Saxonia Thin Copper Blue

Say you want something a bit more “classic,” but with a twist, and with some of the best movement finishing available in the category. Allow me to introduce the Saxonia Thin “Copper Blue” dial. Its dial is a thin layer of goldstone, more commonly known as Aventurine glass in most watch and jewelry circles. Considered “entry level” by Lange standards, the 39mm diameter and 6.2mm thickness of the Saxonia Thin is effectively perfect in proportions, capable of dress watch duty on just about every wrist size out there. Flip her over, and you’re presented with the typical German silver three quarter plate movement design, paired with a hand-engraved balance cock for good measure. This is a watch that can, and should, be loved by all.

Laurent Ferrier Montre École Annual Calendar

Carrying on with the traditional vibe, this time we add a little more complexity to the mix in the form of Laurent Ferrier’s Annual Calendar. Aside from a beautifully designed and finished caliber, and some of the nicest hands in the industry, the Montre École’s calendar system has a few technical tricks up its sleeve. Calendar watches are historically known for being fussy (whether we’re talking perpetual or annual), and setting the time when the watch approaches its date switch can often be problematic. Not so with this model, as Laurent designed the caliber to be able to adjust all its calendar functions forward or backward regardless of the present time. It’s a clever trick, and one that we hope to see more of in the industry these days.

Jaeger-LeCoultre Duomètre à Chronographe

The Duomètre collection from JLC is one of those series of watches that really needs more credit. A bit of a research project turned into a watch collection, what the brand set out to do was to separate out the geartrains and power supplies of watch complication from the time indications they accompany. Though this chronograph has a single balance wheel driving everything, the geartrain for the chronograph runs completely independent of the time indication. It even has its own mainspring barrel, and thus its own power supply, though both its barrels are wound by the same crown. For the sake of clarity, there are separate power reserve indicators for each side of the watch, and all hands associated with the chronograph are blued rather than polished gold.

Hublot Big Bang Meca-10 Magic Gold

Ok ok, enough “conventional” watches. Enter the Hublot Big Bang Meca-10, a creation whose skeletonized dial draws influence from the Meccano builder sets that graced the childhoods of countless folks born in the 20th century. It was the first of the Big Bang series to be offered with a whopping 10-day power reserve, which is displayed both digitally, as well as with a bright red “low power indicator” that appears through an opening in the mainspring barrel as its charge approaches its lower limit. A handful of different case variants have been offered over the years, including this obscure and scratch resistant Magic Gold alloy, that was produced in a series of 200 pieces.

F.P. Journe Chronomètre à Résonance Limited Edition

We couldn’t really get away with building this list without including the legend himself, and especially without including one of the most remarkable manually wound watches that Journe ever created—the Résonance. Any of his watches are a visual treat given how they are designed and finished, but the Résonance is a rare beast. A pair of balance wheels, relying on Breguet’s theoretical principle of resonance in watchmaking, each drive a separate time indication, and with the aid of resonance, the two balances are kept in sync with one another. It’s a fascinating theory, and one that has only been explored by two or three watchmakers in modern times.

De Bethune DB25 Moonphase

A touch less complex, though just about as rare, the De Bethune DB25 Moonphase is one of the more constrained examples of the brand’s work that can be found these days. Rather than opting for open-worked dials, showy material finishing, or other bold details, this DB25 relies on a traditional silver guilloche dial and Roman numerals, letting its spherical moonphase complication really be the star of the show. Flip the watch over, and you’re treated to what you’d expect from De Bethune, a uniquely laid out movement with twin mainspring barrels, a silicon balance wheel, and some absolutely fantastic finishing throughout.

Vacheron Constantin Historique Triple Calendrier 1942

Though Vacheron remains the “sleeper brand” of the holy trinity these days, their Historiques line (as well as others) continues to knock out hits that are deserving of more attention than they get. This Triple Calendar 1942 reference is a faithful reissue, whose only dramatic change is its case size (increased to 40mm). The more you look, the more notable details you uncover, including its soldered lugs, stepped case, and lastly its simple yet elegant hand-wound movement. Steel cases aren’t all that common in the Vacheron catalog either, which makes this piece that much more of a rarity.