Encouraged by the recent reviews of quartz watches, I want to show you the first kind of real (?) watch I ever bought … from this purchase on I always check what I – and others – have on the wrist.

During my time at university I spent 6 months as an intern at a large public broadcaster based in a small town on the edge of the Black Forest in Germany. In one of the main areas, there was (and still is) a public clock, which fascinated me because of its new and (both mathematically and artistically) interesting way to tell the time: each hour is represented by a rich colour and instead of the hands, a disk with 1/12th sliced out, rotates in front of the dial. Therefore you can read the time by looking at the color(s) which are visible through this section.

The basic ideas are:
Each hour (a little bit similar to Goethe’s color wheel) is represented by an appropriate colour (12 being yellow, quite easy to understand)
Slow movement (which wasn’t «invented» yet at the time): 5 minutes reading accuracy is enough (and you actually can read it by 5 minutes with some training …)

In some areas of Germany 4:15 is not expressed as “quarter past 4“, but rather “quarter (of) 5“. The rationale being, that the hour 5 is elapsed by a quarter. And 4:45 then is “three quarters (of) 5” … this does not only sound funny to you, but also to most Germans. But we all say “half five“ over here if it’s 4:30 (not 5:30!).

So as this clock appealed to me in many different ways I wanted to have this as a watch on my wrist and googled a little bit to learn more about it. No, wait, this happened in the 80s, so it was next to impossible to find out more! Therefore it just stayed a dream to me. (At that time ads in in-flight magazines always offered cheap giveaway watches with your company logo on the dial; I was even tempted to get mine done that way.)

Only a few years later during holidays I was strolling over the noble Bahnhofstraße in Zürich and, wow, exactly my watch was on display! Without hesitating the freshly graduated engineer entered the AD and paid today’s equivalent of a whopping 370€ (which was a A LOT to me back then) to get his first expensive wristwatch. (At that time, ADs were still quite snooty. I do remember that the checking of my credit card took ages, just like “Can this young guy in shorts afford anything we sell?“)

Actually, after many years I still like the idea, but the watch is a) quartz and b) less then 31mm diameter and therefore far too small by today’s standards, so I only use it as a small desk clock.

The Chromachron concept and watch were created in the 70s by Tian Harlan, a German designer, born in 1939. It seems, that the today rather unknown Chromachron was his most famous oeuvre. At least, now that I can use the internet, I still didn’t find out that much more about him and the watch. His relatives, however, are much more famous than he is: his father was the director of the unbearable Nazi-propaganda film «Jud Süss» and his cousin was the wife of Stanley Kubrick.

According to the book «Watch. History of the modern wrist watch» by Pieter Doensen, people like Ringo Starr, Max Bill and Charles Aznavour did wear a Chromachron. So I was in good company.