Watch Dandy

Poodle-haired rock god Brian May is world famous as the lead guitarist in Queen who shaped their sound with his nimble-fingered picking and razor-sharp melodies. What’s less well known is that he’s also a die-hard Seiko fan. For years, May has worn one of the brand’s iconic dive watches on his wrist. He’s regularly spotted wearing the Seiko 7548-7010, a diver he picked up while first on tour in Japan back in the 1970s. Now he’s gone one better. May has collaborated with Seiko to create a watch that echoes the design of his homemade guitar that he built with his dad back in 1963. “It took two years and was all done with hand tools using any materials we could lay our hands on,” May told The Guardian in a 2014 interview. “The neck was part of an old fireplace. We hand-carved the inlay on the fret out of old mother-of-pearl buttons and the tremolo arm was made from a bicycle saddlebag holder, topped off with the tip of one of my mum’s knitting needles! “It was a special time and we never really argued. Although Dad did turn the air blue after the chisel slipped and he gouged…

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While Patek Philippe are kept most popularly in the mind today through a handful of steel sports watches and the lyrics of chart-topping songs, the company has a history of remarkable innovation that is sometimes overlooked. In the middle of last century — 1950 to be precise — the Genevan firm released a solar-powered table clock, an invention that predated their first-ever automatic wristwatch movement by several years. It is surprising that Patek Philippe were actively investing in light-powered technology so long ago, as even today most watch companies choose not to work with solar power in favour of battery or mechanically powered timekeepers. Despite this, the Patek Philippe Solar Clock is an excellent example of how forward thinking the brand has been over the course of their history. This innovative approach to powering a clock was looked at closely by Walt Odets in a post he wrote on what was the effective birthplace of the watch internet way back in 2002. Walt wasn’t known for his surface interactions with technical topics, so this is a deep dive into one of the more interesting pages of the history of Patek Philippe. You can read his full analysis right here.

The post RECOMMENDED READING: The remarkable innovation of the Patek Philippe Solar Clock appeared first on Time and Tide Watches.