Gold Wrist Watches

The first and simplest solution was the sundial, which had the advantages of being cheap and easy to make and use. Later came other simple time-measurement devices such as water clocks, sand clocks and candles marked with hour-long segments. Whereas these came to Europe mainly from Asia or the Gold watches world, the much more precise mechanical clock is seen as an entirely European invention. This kind of clock hinged on the invention of what was known as the foliot - a crown escapement with a balance arm driven by weights. Today's experts and historians basically agree that this invention became widely known at the end of the 13th or the start of the 14th century. It came about thanks to two factors, improved methods of metalworking and the growth of towns, whose inhabitants no longer wanted to set their time solely by the sunrise and sunset, which varied according to the season.

The first European precision instrument exported to Asia was a clock

The first mechanical Gold clocks were mostly made by blacksmiths, locksmiths or cannon-makers, who had the Gold watches necessary experience in working with metal. These artisans were mainly to be found in the Netherlands, Italy and France. It is therefore no surprise that the first precision instrument exported to Asia from Europe was a clock. It was recorded as early as 1338 in the freight documents of a Venetian ship bound for Delhi.

Luxury for a select few from a single craftsman

In those days, and throughout the years until early this century, a clock was usually the achievement of a single individual. During the 17th century, metalworkers specialized in clock manufacturing organized themselves into guilds. This gave rise to Gold clock-making centers in Augsburg, Nuremberg, the French towns of Blois and Lyon and, later on, Paris, London and Geneva. At first they produced large-scale public clocks such as the one at Cluny Monastery or the famous astronomical clock at Strasbourg Cathedral. Later on came the spring-driven, more transportable clocks invented in the 15th century, followed by the first precision pendulum clocks dating from around 1660. But these could only be afforded by the nobility, rich middle classes or clergy. The same was true of the expensive early pocket watches, whose invention is ascribed to the Nuremberg master craftsman Peter Henlein in 1554 - though other historians believe that pocket watches already existed in the early 16th century. As a result, it was the demand from royal courts, nobility and prosperous burghers that determined where clocks and Gold watches were produced.