On a recent video call, Nick Manousos, the executive director of the Horological Society of New York, holds an antique Swiss pocket watch up to the screen. Its spare white dial is punctuated by two apertures, a small round window at 12 o’clock marked “heures” and a larger rectangular window at center for “minutes." “This is from a brand that no longer exists called Cortébert,” Manousos says. “It has a device in it that was invented by a watchmaker called Pallweber. In two seconds here, you’ll see it jump.” Sure enough, a beat later, the “11” in the minutes window silently gives way to a “12.” The effect is subtle but uncanny. The watch’s digital-style display was first popularized by Josef Pallweber, an Austrian engineer who licensed his 1883 mechanical invention to Swiss makers including Cortébert and, most famously, IWC Schaffhausen. Also known as jump, or jumping, hour watches because the hour..
