History of the single-hand watch
A Brief History of Time
For many people, the rat race, in which a "normal" watch with minutes and seconds hands places us, is taken for granted. The point, at which man started to realise time itself as a phenomenon, is unknown. The beginning of time measurement via specific instruments probably goes back 6000 years. At that time the first sundials were developed, which of course only had one single hand. Some 500 years later, the first water clocks were built. The length of time a certain amount of water needed to flow through a small hole was used as a measure of time. Instead of water, sand or grains were used as well. The good old hourglass has remained as a nostalgic form of time measurement when cooking eggs.
Primordial form of time measurement
The most natural and most basic form of time measurement seems to be the single-hand watch. That makes a MeisterSinger a true "Ur Uhr" - or 'primordial watch' - of all watches. Its role model has been the sundial, which quite naturally used only one single hand. The first mechanical watch had only one hand as well, the multi-hand technique came along later with increasing industrialization and greater dependence on time.
It was a smith from Nuremberg, Peter Henlein, who sold nearly 500 years ago the first portable mechanical watches. Despite their extremely imprecise time display, this development was a true break-trough. This blacksmith from Nuremberg could have been a true "MeisterSinger", as also the guild of blacksmiths attended the famous Meistersinger singing competitions at that time.
Together with the fermata, the symbol of silence in music and part of the MeisterSinger logo, these are the true roots of the MeisterSinger watches.
Constraints of time measurement
"The watch, not the steam engine, is the machine marking the industrial age the most." The American Lewis Mumford wrote this already in 1934 in his cultural history of the watch. Although the development of both "machines" greatly depended on each other, the concept of "time" had to be reconsidered only in light of industrialization. The minutes-hand - and almost simulteanously the seconds-hand - were born in the 17th Century. An innovation changing the look at a watch: time was no longer a certain point, but an angle between moving hands.
Time measurement as known today and taken for granted, is forcing us into obligation constraints. With its single-hand watches MeisterSinger corrects parts of this development. Not by waiving the need for accuracy these days, but by bringing the balance, the consistency from inside to the outside of the watch.
And if we are honest to ourselves, we realise that a minute by minute measurement of time is not necessary. Or when has been the last time someone said that you were 27 minutes and 43 seconds too late?
