Collecting watches is a great pleasure, but you can’t wear them all at once, so you need a winder. As counterintuitive as it sounds, keeping automatic watches constantly moving avoids unnecessary wear on the movement. Every time a watch is unscrewed to be wound and reset, it erodes the screw threads and wears down the gaskets that make it water resistant. Aside from this, and the obvious task of keeping the mainspring coiled so you don’t have to reset it every time you wear it, a winder also helps keep the movement lubricated. It prevents oil from pooling when the watch winds down – as long as a watch is running, the oil is being evenly distributed throughout the movement.
Collecting watches is a great pleasure, but you can’t wear them all at once, so you need a winder.
A good winder has a variable rotation setting, because not all automatic rotors wind in the same direction and because you don’t want it to get too wound up. It should periodically cycle into a rest mode, as if the watch were actually being worn. A winder should also be relatively noise free; you don’t want to hear it grinding away as you’re sleeping or watching TV.
Here is another perfect example of why you need a watch winder: because it can enhance your decor. Do you need one encrusted with 1,500 diamonds? Why not? You can’t fit this many diamonds on a watch, and walking around wearing a piece of jewelry with this much bling would be excessive. The 1RTM diamonds from Scatola del Tempo “exceeds its utility” as the manufacturers astutely comment. It is set with a total of 89 carats of pavé-set diamonds, and retails for €230,000.
