What do these dials do? How do you use a moving bezel? What does ‘quartz’ movement really mean? The watch is a gift standard over the decades as universally most people need to know the time, even with digital time displays on our ever available cell phones.  Did you know that George Washington used to carry a small portable sundial to tell the time?  Fortunately, the wrist watch has come a long way since the founding of the United States of America. Another fun fact; every function a watch provides beyond that of date and time is called a ‘complication,’ but don’t worry, we’ll make it easy to understand. Allow us to uncomplicated the common functions of most watches. Preceding the popularity of the wrist watch during the 1920s pocket watches were commonly used; especially by men as the wrist watch, originally called a wristlet, was considered a fad worn by women. It wasn’t until servicemen in WWI found the pocket watch to be inconvenient and attached them to their wrist via a leather strap did the consumer demand for wrist watches really take shape. So, what does it mean to say a watch has ‘quartz movement?’  The term quartz movement is derived from the piezoelectric effect of a small quartz crystal inside the watch. Basically your watch picks up good vibrations from the quartz crystal which allows for standardization of movement to measure time- this translates into the hands of your watch accurately depicting the passage of time for you to see. In fact this is a standard way of keeping time for both analog and digital displays. What about that spinning dial around the outside of the watch?  That would be the bezel and while the very basic purpose of the bezel is to hold the front casement on the watch some bezels have notches or numbers used to track the passage of time.  One of the most common uses is to set the zero of the bezel to where the minute hand points, this permits the wearer to easily observe at a glance how much time has passed. One example of how this can be handy is for scuba diving; divers need to be able to easily track how much time has passed with a limited air supply and setting the bezel on their watch allows for this. The other most common ‘complication’ to the watch face is the addition of the chronograph, which is just a stopwatch function. Double chronograph watches are known by the French term ‘rattrapante,’ which allows the user to estimate two separate events with different durations.  Another type of chronograph is the flyback, which just resets the stopwatch function back to zero with a single push of the button. With Van Scoy we offer the very popular Lüm-Tec watches as seen above, which are produced in limited number, as well as designs by Michele seen below. Both practical and beautiful these watches would make a charming gift for any occasion.