If you’re looking for a watch that has a day/night indicator, you’ve got quite a few options. It could show up as a simple two-color disc, a picture of the sun (and moon), or maybe even just color coding on a bezel or dial to add a dimension to what your 24-hour/GMT hand is telling you.
The Mr. Jones Sun and Moon watch goes in a bit different route, however. As you can see by the image at the top of this post, they’ve got a fairly large cutout (wrapping from 9 o’clock to 3 o’clock) that quite literally paints a picture of the time of day. The graphic is actually more than a simple indicator, as well – it’s intrinsic to how you read the time.
As you can tell from this image, you’ll use the sun (or the moon, at night) to tell what you’re at; the central hand is then for the minutes. It’s unique (in terms of how to read the time), but it’s something I think you could get to “at-a-glance” capability with. And while unique, it’s still using the standard rotation technique that you’d have with a normal hour hand – so you’ve got a basic 24-hour quartz (Ronda 515-24H) movement under the dial.
The dial is housed in a 37mm stainless steel case offering a 50m water resistance rating (splash, don’t swim), with a black leather strap holding it in place. Is this a watch that’s going to go down in history as a milepost? No, it’s not. What it is, however, is a unique presentation of the passage of the day – perhaps best suited for someone who’s a little more artistically inclined.
Our friends over at Watchismo have it on pre-order (product page) for $199.99, with delivery being anticipated for April of this year.
UPDATE
I received an interesting note on this watch from the folks at Mr. Jones – this is actually a riff on an older style of pocket watch – thought in the new version here, the hour and minute scales are reversed. It’s kind of interesting (at least to me) to see this sort of historical inspiration and re-interpretation.