For many years, watches have been something of a status symbol for the people who wear them. They are frequently bought just for their looks, but are also bought on account of their technical features such as their great precision. Watches are very collectible and some models can be worth a lot of of money.
The first watches that were available to buy were pocket clocks, followed by clocks which held by a pendant that attached to the wearers jacket. Over the years, changes in society changed how we carried our timepieces.
It has been said that a nanny invented the first wrist watch around the end of the 19th century. It is said that she attached a watch to her wrist using a band of silk . The first wrist watches manufactured were actually smaller models of pocket clocks attached to a leather strap.
Louis Cartier made the first watches 
photo credit: Taz-Vollof the type we see today. He designed a watch for his friend, the pilot Alberto Santos Dumont. By 1911 this type of watch available to the public.
The design of watches started to change from the usual round shape which was fashionable up until that time. From the Cartier wrist watch, other watch brands began to be created which were recognised by their shape.
From around 1913, watches were made in many different styles and shapes. Some examples are Patek Philippe’s ‘gondola’ watch and Louis Cartier’s ‘Tank’ watch, named after English battlefield tanks of that era. These watches are now collectors items. Other watch makers such as Vacheron Constantin and Audemars Piguet, in addition to Cartier and Patek Philippe, released new watch designs featuring day, month and lunar phases, features commonly foun in today’s watches.
Probably the most famous of all wrist watches is the Rolex watch. The Rolex Prince was their first watch, and was first sold in the 1920s. It had a ‘dual time’ feature which was famous for having the ‘seconds’ area of the face larger than the ‘minutes’ area.
Also in the 1920s, Jaeger Le Coultre released a watch known as the ‘Reverse’, which could be turned 180 degrees in its case, to protect the crystal. The ‘Reverse’ was very popular would have been even more popular but for the 1930s recession and the second world war.
Many people choose to collect the new types of high quality watches. Others choose to collect the watches of the past. Watch collecting has grown in popularity over the years and some watches can fetch large sums of money. Many people also buy watches as investments.
