The romance of the watch has bedazzled the retina, cornia, rods & cones of billions of pairs of eyes for many more than decades; one might say many centuries.

The Swiss Lever Escapement is one of the better put-together technical names for a mechanism ever made, yet very many of us will never get the chance in time to really sit down and appreciate its magic.

So here is a photo of it inside one of our watches.

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It’s the lovely yellow wee thing, it spins both clockwise & counterclockwise, basically…forever.

The entire movement is an automatic movement, please take a few moments thinking of it’s scale, before reading the following. Context is key.

The reason why these beasts of miniature movement are still around can almost certainly be pointed to what you are thinking right now, because when you look at it, it confuses you as to how it is made, how it is so complex, how it is so small, and how on earth it actually works, all at the same time, but it is so mesmerizing. Whether that is any kind of point at all, the point is that you look at it and your eye drools. However that is just an assumption, one could also say they are still around, because they are so brilliantly engineered to do one thing, astoundingly well in simplicity, and for that reason, their pure function of reliability outweighs the functional benefit of putting on your digital watch. Meaning they are still around, because they are incredible at what they do, telling the time, and require no battery to work. As an interjection to that point, we produce only one watch with a battery, which is powered by quartz and has cogs still, this was the first watch, and people love it so much, we now make a multiplicity of watches with mechanical movements in them based off its design which is already a success for Paceracer. Aside from the huge range of designs which all have automatic movements in them. Anyhow, back to the point of what your eye & mind are trying to make up in thought, of the image of a mechanical automatic movement above.

It is art, and art it will remain, art is in the eye of the beholder, and to keep it simple, it is best we just refer to the reason for these art forms to still be around in the digital age, is because they are simply, just beautiful in usefullness & aesthetic.

Please see below..

..caught you again! Questions running from your eye to your mind.

In a different light, fully encased, with sapphire on the back - water-proofed, you see the same mechanism as above, however encompassed inside a custom design one-off Paceracer watch.

The rotor weight, otherwise known as the automatic weight, or differently - less commonly (wisely), spoken about as the kinetic weight, you see it rotated about 90 degrees from the first image exposing a new nakedness. Centered in view are two yellow (gold) cogs, these both spin the same direction, but in opposite to the rotor weight, key pieces in the works of the charging ratchet mechanism.

This astounding mechanism brings to you the right to wear your watch daily, and never have to charge it, ever, if you keep wearing it, and keep moving - which to almost every living creature’s benefit, seems to happen a lot. It is the works of a genius.

Actually, it is not, it is the works of many a genius, and decades, moving onto centuries of time, linking brilliant creations, the advancements of technology, and innovations & struggles of war.

The four Paceracer watches above, all have automatic mechanical movements in them. Each can be made larger, or smaller to fit your wrist.

Watches were popular in wartime. Many were made for war, for survival, and if not surviving war between humans, over land and culture, mechanical watches also survived a more peaceful battle of innovative progress, which struck against the industry, so hard, it nearly collapsed the financial ability for mechanical watch manufacturers to still be around.

Now, this was a while ago, around five decades ago. The Swiss, the Japanese, the Swiss, the Japanese, and likely some other contenders, battled. It was a battle of Art & War.

To find out more about this, visit our watchmaking studio, a space built to create one-off watches, that we design to look beautiful, be hand produced in New Zealand, and to respect the beauty, cultural history & longevity of watchmaking, in the art of mechanical movements.

We will more than happily further the climax & details of this story to watchmaking’s history of Art & War. It is often best discussed over a Rum or Whiskey, coffee goes perfectly well also, just get in touch.