As such, they’re generally expensive to acquire. The other part is, of course, the fact that they’re incredibly complex pieces of machinery in which hundreds of tiny parts must operate in perfect synchrony. Today modern, digital-timing systems have basically rendered the mechanical chronograph obsolete, but their associations with sports, auto racing, aviation and other exciting facets of life are in part why we love chronographs. Each press of the pusher is a tactile experience otherwise missing from watches, and the utility of being able to record the length of events on the fly was certainly not lost on the racers, referees, doctors, pilots and astronauts that used them throughout the 20th century. Once the event you want to record is complete, you press that same pusher again, take note of the time, then press a second pusher and the mechanism resets to zero. To use a chronograph, you depress one of the pushers on the side of the case, engaging the function to get the second hand moving. Because of their extra stopwatch function, chronographs have traditionally been more expensive than time-only watches - though new additions to the chronograph market have added lots of value and affordability to your options. Most chronographs today feature dual pushers, which are both useful for starting and stopping the chronograph mechanism and also lend a cool aesthetic aspect to one side of the watch. In short, a modern chronograph tells the time traditionally and, using a distinct mechanical complication, also can record seconds, minutes, and hours (usually) in a stopwatch-style function. The mechanism was soon miniaturized and added to pocket watches. These recorded on two rotating discs of paper the difference in time between two horses on a race track. Its name is derived from one of the earliest versions of the mechanism, which was essentially a box filled with clockwork attached to two inky styluses. Chronograph means “time writer,” but you can think of it as a stopwatch, activated and stopped at the whim of its user.

Swiss military calibre watch