Also some dial markers are attached to the front with miniscule
pegs, friction fit
Over the years I’ve developed a kind of “the nature of time” train
of thought - I thought I’d share it here, since it’s in keeping with
the topic. First, let’s back up a little…
You’re reading this thread, and you are a good reader, as most here
probably are. You may think you are reading so:
I-have-gotten-a-big-kick- out-of-this-thread, word by word. But
you’re not, you are reading word groups, which are graphic images.
If I say, “this is my house”, your brain picks out that entire
phrase, as a unit, because it’s familiar to you. Just as you don’t
pick each word apart, letter by letter, most people also don’t
actually read words, they read phrases. Most people aren’t really
aware of it, they just do it. It’s also the reason why a difficult
text takes a long time to read, and why a strange font is hard to
read. You don’t recognize the graphic images, and you need to pick
them out one by one.
Hopefully readers can make the leap from that to understanding that
a watch or a clock is not just a timepiece, it’s a time-calculating
device. I believe it’s the reason why digital clocks came and went,
by and large. It’s 11:28am as I write this. That’s what a digital
clock tells you, that it’s 11:28am. But my glance at the clock also
tells me that it’s a half hour till noon, and that my work day is
about 1/2 finished. Sometimes you may say, “I have five minutes
until I need to leave”. More often you look at a watch and it tells
you, “I have ~this~~ amount of time which is impossible to
verbalize but it’s a recognizable chunk of time that represents just
about enough time for me to comb my hair and get my jacket before I
go”. IOW, although we communicate in hours and minutes, we don’t
necessarily THINK in them so much as that the sweep of that hand
through that space on the clock is time enough to brush your teeth.
Take my words and watch yourself and be aware of your thoughts for a
bit. I’ll bet you’ll find yourself thinking more in mental chunks of
time than actual minutes. It’s a half hour till lunch is more “Time
enough to finish this work” than it is literally 30 minutes, in most
people’s consciousness. Hard to put into words, but I think most
people will understand what I’m saying, on some real level.
Which takes us back to recognizable graphic images. If you look at a
typical clock face (as an adult), you know at a glance what time it
is, what time it will be, how long it has been since before, and how
long it will be until then. All in a glance. That’s our time
calculating device. If you remove the dots on the face, then you
need to think about it: The big hand is there, and the small hand is
there, so it’s this time. Aside from the fact that you can’t really
tell time to the minute any more, you need to think about it for a
second. We are adults, so it’s only a second, but to me it’s too
much - to many people it’s too much, in fact. That’s why most
watches with blank dials are more jewelry than timepieces - “Dress
Watches”. This isn’t some tirade against such watches, though. It’s
just to acquaint people with the notion that a watch is more than
just awatch. If you mess around too much with the important things -
the shape, the dial and the hands, people will lose that familiar
graphic image, and you will have lost them as buyers or even just
watch wearers/enjoyers…A watch (or clock) is something most of us
don’t think so much about, but it’s part of life in ways many don’t
think much about, either. Keeping it effortless is a big part of a
successful watch… Just some thoughts…