The most iconic watches: the wristwatches everyone recognises

Among the most iconic wristwatches are the Cartier Santos of 1904 and Tank of 1917, the Rolex Oyster Perpetual of 1931, the Rolex Submariner of 1953, the Omega Speedmaster of 1957, the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak of 1972, the Swatch of 1983 and the Casio F-91W of 1989. They are icons because they created a type: the men’s wristwatch, the diver’s watch, the Moon watch, the luxury sports watch and the plastic watch.

Facts

From the pocket to the wrist

Around 1900 men carried pocket watches, and wristwatches were seen mostly as jewellery for women. That began to change when the aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont asked Louis Cartier for a watch he could read during flight, and the Cartier Santos of 1904 became one of the first wristwatches for men. The Cartier Tank of 1917, in which the sides of the case form the lugs for the strap, became the model for the rectangular watch; see the guide to the Cartier Tank.

In the 1930s two classic men’s watches appeared: the Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso of 1931, whose case can be flipped over to protect the crystal during polo matches, and Patek Philippe’s round Calatrava of 1932, the model for the simple dress watch. The diagram of watch cases further down shows the parts mentioned in auction catalogues.

Rolex: waterproof and self-winding

Rolex gave the wristwatch two of its most important properties. The Oyster case of 1926 was waterproof, and in 1931 came a freely swinging rotor that wound the mainspring as the arm moved, in the Oyster Perpetual. Together they became the basis of almost all later Rolex models, and the Datejust of 1945 added the date in a window.

How automatic watches differ from quartz watches is explained in the guide to automatic and quartz watches, and the movement’s workings in the diagram further down. Rolex’s sister brand has a guide of its own, Rolex and Tudor.

The tool watches: divers, pilots and drivers

In 1953 two diver’s watches appeared almost simultaneously: Blancpain’s Fifty Fathoms for the French navy’s combat divers and the Rolex Submariner with a rotating bezel. The Submariner became the model for almost all later diver’s watches; read more in the guide to the Rolex Submariner. For pilots came Breitling’s Navitimer in 1952, with a slide rule on the bezel, and Rolex’s GMT-Master for reading two time zones.

The Omega Speedmaster of 1957 was a chronograph for motor racing, but NASA approved it for spacewalks in 1965, and Buzz Aldrin wore his on the Moon in 1969; see the guide to the Omega Speedmaster. Rolex’s Daytona of 1963 and Heuer’s square Monaco of 1969 became the watches of motor racing, the latter through Steve McQueen in the film Le Mans.

The luxury sports watch in steel

In 1972 Audemars Piguet showed a sports watch in steel that cost more than many gold watches. The Royal Oak, designed by Gérald Genta, has an octagonal bezel with visible screws and a bracelet that merges with the case. It sold slowly at first but became the model for an entire genre.

A few years later Genta designed the Nautilus for Patek Philippe, with a case shaped like a porthole on an ocean liner. Today the two are among the most sought-after watches of all, and the term luxury sports watch often refers precisely to them and their successors.

Quartz and plastic

On Christmas Day 1969 Seiko began selling the Astron, the world’s first quartz wristwatch. It lost or gained only a few seconds a month, and within ten years quartz watches became cheap. The Swiss watch industry lost large parts of the market, what is called the quartz crisis; see the guide to the Seiko Astron and the quartz crisis.

One response was the Swatch in 1983, a plastic watch with few parts that was made entirely by machine and changed its designs every season; see the guide to the Swatch. The same year came Casio’s shock-resistant G-Shock, and in 1989 the Casio F-91W, one of the world’s best-selling wristwatches; see the guide to the Casio F-91W.

What to look for: what makes a watch iconic

An iconic watch is recognised by a few details that have accompanied the model for decades: the Tank’s sides, the Submariner’s bezel and indices, the Speedmaster’s tachymeter scale and three subdials, the Royal Oak’s octagonal bezel. That is precisely why they are also the most copied, and the details further down, such as lugs, luminous paint and battery cover, help you see whether a watch is older or younger than it looks.

If you want to date a watch, begin with the guide to dating a wristwatch. All the models, over a hundred with photographs and dates, can be found under watches.

How to recognise it

Exercise

Which watch was shown in 1972 as a sports watch in steel that cost more than many gold watches?