When you are talking about watches or timepieces, a complication is not necessarily a bad thing! At the most basic level, a term complication refers to any feature of the watch that is not dedicated to showing you time itself. A very basic watch that only shows you the hour, minute and second is known as a simple movement. Any feature that is beyond that will be called a complication, though the more basic additions like chronographs, automatic winding, and date displays are usually not called complicated. Are you interested in what a complicated watch can provide and what kind of complications exist out there?

When you are looking into complications in watches, you'll discover that the more complicated a clock is, the more moving features that it might have. For instance, when you are looking at a watch that will display the time and date, you are looking at what might come up to more than two hundred parts. Some watches that have many features may have more than a thousand parts. Of course, when you are looking at a clock that has this many moving parts, you are looking at something that has a lot more license to go wrong! Watches with a great deal of complication to them might need to have more sophisticated care in the long run.

If you are thinking about the purchase of a complicated watch, be aware that the more complicated a watch is, the more you can expect to pay for it. Ultra-complicated watches are produced in strictly limited numbers and can easily become expensive collector's items. Of course, there are definitely complicated watches out there that are more affordable and will not require as much specialized maintenance should they break or if the workings should become somehow impaired.

What are some of the complications that you might routinely see in watches? A date display and a day of the week display are both common features in wristwatches, as is a chronograph, but watch complications can become a great deal more sophisticated. For instance, some watches will show you the time of the sunset and the time of the sunrise, the time of a second time zone, the phase of the moon, or even the phase of the Zodiac that you are currently in. These complications will range from a fairly straightforward complication to being something that is very complex.

Take some time and take a look around at the timepieces that you see. There are going to be many of them to choose from, and when you are making your decision, remember to think about how you feel about the complication of your watch. This might be just what it takes to help you make your choice, so look around for a watch with a functionality or complication that amuses you or that you find useful!

Since the year 1830 Baume and Mercier have been know for making quality Swiss time pieces that are unique and stand there own against any other watch on the market.

Today celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher and Christian Slater have realized the quality to commitment that Baume and Mercier have made to their product and they wear their watches proudly. As have Clint Eastwood, Jamie Pressly, Lindsay Lohan, Samuel L. Jackson and Sheree Wilson to name drop but a few.

The many different collections offered by the company show everything from brawn and heavy-duty outdoor styles to elegant and tasteful watches that are at home at some of the most prestigious events in high society. And it the company does both extremes with a flair for style and design that make each one different and unique yet still kindred inspirit and design to keep the corporate identity intact.

The Ilea watch line is touted as the essence of a woman. It is sexy and full of curves and would make any woman look better for wearing it. It has been designed from the start with a woman in mind. Perhaps that is because a woman has designed it, and who knows better what a woman wants than another woman?

The Hampton line is a retro styled design that looks like it belongs where it’s name came from, the south shore of Long Island where the people are rich and powerful, money is old and the views are spectacular. This is a collection that says money and won’t let the viewer ignore it.

The Diamant collection, as the name might imply, glimmers like a fine diamond and is yet another watch that was designed with the ladies in mind and should look almost as good on her wrist as a large diamond on her hand. There are nice smooth lines that will enhance the fine smooth female wrist and beg to be taken into consideration.

The Classima Executive line looks like it belongs on the wrists of a Wall Street executive. It is sheik and stylish with a hint of ruggedness thrown in for good measure. It just sits there and refuses to look average. Some watches have a hard time looking good in multiple situations. This one is not one of them and can look as at home at a corporate meeting as it will at the family barbeque.

The Riviera line gives one the air of being in another country with its sleek lines and bold yet subdued styling. It looks as if it would fit nicely on the wrists of many of the film stars of yesterday which projected the unbeatable male image. You might expect to see something like this on the arm of Humphrey Bogart as he walked to the pane in that famous scene from Casablanca.
If you are looking for a quality watch that will stand the test of time, you owe it to yourself and your family and friends to look at the watches made by Baume and Mercier.

This company makes a big claim of making instruments for professionals. One look at the line and you can see that they have a lot to brag about. The line is solid and quite largely aimed at the active male. The first one to jump out at you might be the Chronomat. One look at this watch and you know it was designed to log in some serious flight time in the air under some pretty exacting conditions. It is heavy and looks like it will take pretty much whatever you can dish out for it. It is not one of those wimpy little all looks and no guts watches. It is made to take the punishment that a real man can dish out.

This Swiss watch company was started in 1894 and got off the ground in the aviation industry when brothers Orville and Wilber Wright took to the air in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina back on December 17, 1903. It was the start of a match between Breitling and the aviation industry that would last into today and includes many major aviation events in history.

The Windrider line is another great piece. It is slightly more stylish and designed again to take the rigors of flight. They look like they would be equally at home in the air or out on the town after landing in some mystical country where the air is cool and the action is hot.

The Professional line is a take no prisoners lineup that starts off with a unit called the Emergency. This is way cool in that should your plane go down, the watch has a micro transmitter in it that will broadcast a signal on the aircraft emergency frequency which is 121.5 MHz so that rescuers can locate you. That happens in addition to any emergency gear on the plane. You need only unscrew a cap on the watch and pull out an antenna, which then will broadcast for up to 48 hours and the signal can be found up to a 100-mile distance from the watch. So you get good looks, functionality and safety all in one little wrist worn package.

The last line in the Breitling line is the Aeromarine line, which offer a lot of features that the others do not such as improved water resistance down to a depth of over 600 feet.

When you add all of the features and benefits that you can find in the various models and combine that with the great styling available, you should have no issues in finding a watch from this company that will appease your desire for great looks and still allow you to get that rugged atonement and still have the reliability and safety features that allow it to actually do the job which you actually purchased it to do.

Breitling truly is an instrument made for professionals and one that is also made by professionals and one of the rare things today that actually may exceed your expectations on performance.

What do Derek Jeter, Wynton Marsalis, Kerry Washington, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Tom Brady have in common? They are all famous people in one walk of life or another. And they all enjoy wearing their own personal favorite model of Movado watch.

Movado was started back in 1881 by a nineteen year old in Switzerland and since that time has become an industry leader with over 100 patents and in excess of 200 international awards to it’s credit. Movado, unlike some other watch companies out there, has a name that means something. The name Movado simply means “Always In Motion”.

One of the most striking watches ever made by Movado is as simple as it is elegant. It is called the Movado Museum Watch and is stunning. It is a plain black dial with a single dot at the 12 o’clock position, which is there to signify the sun at high noon. It is so named because it was, in 1960 the first watch to have the honor of being selected to be part of the permanent collection at the New York Museum of Modern Art. Today the Movado line is represented in museums across the globe.

Movado sometimes follows the often forgotten creed that sometimes less is more and that is translated into the wonderfully unique designs of some of the most brilliant timepieces available. While other companies are concerned with seeing who can design the most ornate face or cram the most features on the small dial that is the face of the watch. This company has stood by it’s time honored style tradition of making an elegant watch with smooth uncomplicated lines that looks phenomenal no matter the setting.

Movado has a long list of available styles within its many collections and yet the amazingly clean look remains. The 800 series is the decided break from that tradition with it’s many quartz chronograph models. And yet even with the many functions available on these models, the over all look and feel is surprisingly sleek and subdued with an elegant state of the art flair that is unmatched by chronographs by other manufacturers.

Movado has long set the standard for design that has been envied by the other watchmakers and the design, functionality and reliability remain as much a part of the Movado line today as it has been since its inception over 125 years ago.

If you were to line up a dozen or more watches in a row with the brand names removed and walked up to that row of timepieces, it would be immediately aware which watch is the Movado. Your eyes would be drawn to it not unlike a moth is drawn to a flame. The design is so different from those of the other makers that you cannot help but notice it. The same thing will happen to it while it is on your wrist. The people that you meet and come in contact with will be unable to take their eyes off of it and you will find yourself being complimented on it frequently.

Oris has been in the watch-making arena since 1904 and continues today to make a series of watches that continue to become more popular every year. They have become a trusted Swiss watch designer that has an eye towards the rugged quality, which is increasingly more popular.

Oris watches are catching on with the “in” crowd with people from the Hollywood scene to race car drivers to divers and pilots choosing to sport one of the many watches in the Oris family. One of the most impressive watches in the family being the hand-made and collectible limited edition High-Mech model that is made see through so you can see the inner workings of the unit including the trademarked Red Rotor. Each unit is individually numbered.

When it comes to watch collections, they offer the Motor Sport collection, the
Diving collection, the Aviation collection and the Culture collection and each of these collections, as you will see, contain a number of different watches. Each collection and indeed each watch within those collections are unique in and of themselves.

The Motor Sport collection contains the TT3 Models, the Williams F1 Team Models and the Chronoris Model. All of these are sleek looking and give the wearer the sense of a finely tunes and over performing Formula One race car going around the course at full throttle. There is nothing half cocked here, these timepieces come across as what they are, winners in form, function and wear ability no matter which model you strap on, your wrist is bound to look great at the finish line no matter what race it is you are finishing.

The Divers collection has taken the sophisticated needs of the modern diver into consideration and made a watch that is capable of handling all the complex things that one would need during an underwater excursion. This includes the ability to withstand depth of up to 1,000 meters, which to those unacquainted with the metric system, is 3,281 feet below sea level. That means you can get pretty far down there and the watch will still do what it is designed to do and not give you any issues. Of course if you don’t dive, it will still look really good on your wrist.

When it comes to watches that are made to fly high, Oris has the Aviation line, which is ready to take flight and give any pilot from the rank amateur to the seasoned veteran all the features he will need for that trouble free trip through the clouds. It features a compass, a degree scale and three compete time zones so you will always know exactly where you stand up there. It is designed for easy visibility and the crucial pieces are larger for easier use.

The Culture line is designed to just make you look good when you are own painting the town. You can look at an Oris Culture series watch and know that the person wearing it has class and it says it all without saying a word.

Way back in 1839 a watchmaker of Polish descent named Antoni Norbert Patek began making pocket watches in Geneva with a fellow Polish watchmaker he continued until he joined up with Adrien Phillipe and began what became the Philippe Patek company in 1851.

It was in the year 1868 when they produced the first wristwatch. The company pioneered many watch mainstays that are still in use today. These include things like the keyless winding mechanism, the minute repeater, the perpetual calendar, the chronograph and the split second hand to name a few.

Watches made by the Philippe Patek Company routinely bring high prices at auction partially drivne by collectors who are searching for quality pieces and partially by the Patek company as they buy pieces to help complete the museum that has been established to fill the Patek mueseum in Geneva.

The company is still alive and well today and is making some of the best pieces available on the market. A custom made pocket watch which has a full twenty four fucntions made by the Patek Company in 1933 closed in auction in 1999 for eleven million dollars.

Watches made by them are sought after by the rich and famous and cen be seen adorning the attire of royalty around the world as a show of status. The timepieces have been bought by everyone from monarchs to the pope for personl use and gifts and as far back as 1851 watches made by them have been supplied to Queen Victoria and her consort.

In the year 1989, for it’s anniversary, the company again made history with a watch callede the Calibre 89 that had a full 33 functions which ranged from the date of Easter, the time of Sunrise, a thermometer, equation of time and can even add a day in for leap year while leaving out the extra day as needed. Oh yes, and it also keeps time!

Back in 1932 the company was purchased by brothers Charles and Jean Stern and it has remained in that family since that time and continues on today with a tradition of excellence in watch making. The current president is a fourth generation of the Stern family where it will be passed to a fifth generation as the time comes.

The company has used the Spanish Knights Calatrava cross as it’s symbol since the end of the nineteenth century which was adopted by the company as its brand symbol which is still used today.

Today the company has a presence, as does the rest of the world, on line where you can trace the history and review the watches that are made by this fine Swiss company. You can view the current line and view information about the museum and find any information that you might want or need to know about the companies past, present or future. You can also learn where to buy them and how to maintain your watch, which is relevant information no matter what type of watch you own.

With a total of around three hundred employees, the Rado Watch Company of Lengnau Switzerland has become known for making watches that are made from scratch proof material and because of this they are considered a pioneer in that area.
The company is relatively young having been formed in 1917 and for the first forty years of manufacture, they focused primarily on the manufacture of the internal movements of the watch and not actually producing a physical watch.

Between 1957 and 1962 they perfected the watch design and then in 1962 came out with the worlds first scratchproof watch sold under the name of Diastar. The company continued to flourish under this setting until around 1983 when another company, the SMH GROUP that was renamed in 1998 as the Swatch Company, which is still known today, bought it.

One huge difference between Rado and the traditional Swiss watches is that the Rado company utilizes unconventional high tech designs and materials in the product and a lot of those materials are actually new to watch making. They incorporated hard metals such as titanium carbide and tungsten and later produced a watch with a coating of high tech diamond, which is the hardest watch on earth.

The Rado Company has gotten many awards for the design of the watches they produce and they have been quite innovative in that design. However, the traditionalists of the Swiss watch community would prefer that they stay along the tried and true designs.

While they range from the affordable four hundred dollar range well into the tens of thousands of dollars they remain a popular watch and is sought after by people from all walks of life. Like all manufacturers there has been a proliferation of counterfeit watches copying the designs and generally sell for fewer than two hundred dollars,

The Rado Company has countered these fakes by having a rather small and limited dealer network and not allowing them to be sold on line. So if you happen to find a Rado watch on line, it is quite likely a copy and not the real thing.

In the current market Rado is making nearly half of a million watches per year in its factory and these contain models of every price and style imaginable and are in high demand the world over.

Their website contains not only information about the line but a useful list of other information, from Frequently Asked Questions which contain some interesting information about battery life and water proof capabilities and why your 30 meter watch might actually leak in your kitchen sink and it not be defective. Lots of useful information for everyone that owns a watch and not just folks who own or are looking to own a watch made by the Rado Company. You can also down load a user manual, which is a nice touch because I can’t tell you how often I need my manual and never can seem to find it.

I think that you might find it an interesting site to surf in.

The culmination of a successful career in the business world is often symbolized by the Rolex watch. It is a status symbol that is as timeless and reveled as is the tradition of retirement. When you see a Rolex and the Rolex Crown symbol on a watch, it means that the person who is wearing it has attained a level above the ordinary and deserves a little more respect than just the average person on the street. A Rolex is the ultimate status timepiece in today’s society.

You can just bring up the name Rolex in any conversation and heads will turn and the volume level around the table in the room will lower and the folks in attendance will take note. So what is there about this specific maker of watches that is cause for such legendary status?

Well the Rolex Corporation currently is in production of approximately somewhere near two thousand watches on any given day and in the year 2003 had an annual revenue near the three billion dollar mark. And in the year 2007 Rolex came in at number 71 in the magazine Business Weeks top 100 global most valuable brands. That is global, not the United States, but in the world.

Rolex, to have such a fine reputation, is still a baby in the world industry having been started as a company in 1905 and officially named Rolex in 1908. The company has had an exciting and obviously fruitful first hundred years of existence.

Of course since the company has the most easily recognizable name and sells for fairly high dollar amounts. You can expect that the Rolex is also one of the most counterfeited watches in the world as well. Most of the replicas that are seen on the market come from China where it is fairly easy and cheap to manufacture the knock offs and even some of the counterfeits sell regularly for upwards of $1,000 to give you an idea of the worth.

The Rolex is a staple in modern popular culture. With everyone from the late Paul Newman to golf great Arnold Palmer have worn them and the Rolex was often immortalized in the James Bond 007 movies popularized by Hollywood.

Throughout history the most popular model in the Rolex line has been the Oyster line. It has garnished more sales and more knock off counterfeits than any other watch in the Rolex catalog and continues to rank among the most popular even in today’s world. The Oyster line can sell for anywhere from $4,500 to $9,200 per unit and the other watches by Rolex like the Submariner line sell for averages between $20,000 and $28,000 per watch.

The Rolex line contains over 22 individual collections of wristwatch and to even attempt to give a concise listing of these watches would be a tedious and momentous task at best and one that would require many more pages of information than we are able to devote here at this time in this article.

There is one word that can adequately describe the Tag Heuer line of watches. That word is wow. Tag Heuer lists the company as Swiss Avant-Garde and have been making quality watches since 1860.

The line of precision time devices comes from the family’s fanaticism with precision and a love of sports and has continued for almost one and one half centuries.

The first thing one might be taken by is the absolute sense of rugged design such as is present in the Grand Carerra line. One glance at this line and you are ready to strap one on, jump into a Ferrari and slam it into gear and get up to a nice cruising speed on the Autobahn. It simply exudes testosterone and will get most any male heart racing wildly. Designed as a driving style watch it does look good doing it.

If you are a male looking for something more sleek and ultra modern, you might want to look at the Microtimer Model. With accuracy down to 1 1,000th of a second this watch means business and looks great doing it. It is a stunningly black design with a silver body and the display numbers literally jump off the face of the watch making it near impossible to mistake the time or the chronograph function numbers.

Over the course of time when time matters people have depended on Tag Heuer watches. People in history like General Dwight David Eisenhower back in 1945 during World War two or in 1962 when a Tag Heuer was the first Swiss watch to make the journey into space.

In 1911 they made the first Chronograph to be dash mounted in planes and automobiles, in 1916 they manufactured the first stop watch capable of accuracy down to 1 100th of a second to be used in timing race events. They have been the official time keeping piece in more Olympic games than you can imagine beginning as far back as 1924 in Paris. They designed a pilot’s chronograph watch in 1930.

In every report from skiing to formula one racing to yachting to air racing. If there is a need for accurate time there has most likely been a Tag Heuer involved in the process at some point.

The company has had a long and standing relationship with a variety of competitive sports and there is a long list of celebrities who have allowed a Tag Heuer watch to grace their wrists. These range from the aforementioned General Eisenhower to actor Steve McQueen and his famed Monaco watch to film star Leonardo DiCaprio to mention just a few famous folks that have seen and wanted the best available time piece.

The company is continuing it’s fine tradition into the new millennium and has continued to be both reliable and innovative at the same time and they will continue to be even more so in the future.

The watches can only be purchased through a growing list of exclusive authorized retailers across the globe.

Tissot has been making fine Swiss watches since back in 1853 when the company was founded and began production of fine timepieces and today they continue to grow strong over 150 years later and they are represented in over 150 countries across the world.

One of the things that has helped the company survive and grow over that time period is the broad and diverse lines of watches that they make available to the mass public.  Another helping factor is that they manage to make these watches available at a lower price than any other Swiss watchmaker in competition with them.

The company has become the official time keeping device for NASCAR and several other sporting organizations.  Even though there are other companies out there that are trying to earn that honor Tissot managed to end up on top.

The motto for the company is More Than A Watch and as you look over the many and various collections in the watch lines you will understand that statement.

The T-Touch series, for example features touch screen technology.  You can have a range of functions that were before only available in the movies.  There is an altimeter for aviation folks, a depth mode for divers, the traditional chronograph mode, a compass and thermometer functions for the out of door types as well as an alarm and all the standard features one might expect on a fine watch.

The Tissot line offers a well rounded sports collection where the sports fan is sure to find a model that expresses the inner athlete or fan inside them and allow the expression of who you are while still maintaining the functionality needed to be a sports watch.

The Trend Collection, as the name might imply.  Is all about high fashion and making the statement that you are in tune with fashion and that you know what you want and how you want to project your image.

There is the bold look of the Classic Collection where everything including the design is timeless and will be around for a long time.  These watches draw on time honored and time tested designs that are still relevant in today’s world.

The Gold Collection is a grouping of wristwatches that tout the many different styles that are built around or adorned by the color that says wealth, gold.

The company pays homage to the past greats of the watch industry with the timeless designs of the pocket collection.  These prove that the age-old art of the pocket watch is still alive and well.

Last, but certainly not least is the Heritage collection.  A series of watches each with two totally separate watches. This will allow you to have two time zones on your wrist at one time, which can be a huge time saver for you if you frequently travel to or do business in more than one location in the world at any given time. It will save you the worry of trying to remember the difference between the two so you will always be on time.