I’ve not looked too closely at single-handed watches before, but news of the new Christopher Ward Jumping Hands C9 model grabbed my attention. And just looking at the pictures, I’m immediately drawn to the utter simplicity (at least, on the surface) of the watch.
To just look at the watch, you see an uncluttered face. You have one large hand marking out the minutes, and then at the 12 o’clock position (at least, where 12 would be on a regular watch) you have a larger window that displays, in Roman numerals, the hours.
While it is an unconventional presentation, it’s done so beautifully. With the subtraction of a hand, CW took the opportunity to decorate the dial some as well. If you look closely, you can see a sort of spiraling spiderweb design, done in white so it blends in with the dial. This is sitting within a hand-finished 43mm case (don’t recall seeing that size lately), which itself is housing the workhorse ETA 2824-2 movement. The movement has been modified, per CW, to deliver a constant amount of power transition across the hour for greater accuracy. I can’t quite put that into plain English, but it’s made the watch more accurate, I’m for it.
The one thing I’m not quite a fan of is the alligator strap – but I realize that’s personal preference. I also realize that I’m not going to be seeing one of these up close and personal – unless you jumped in on the pre-order, you’re out of luck. They’ve limited the model to 200 pieces (at $1,585 apiece), and as of this writing, they’re completely sold out.
