The Marvelous Watch

As much of America set back their wristwatches yesterday, it's interesting to note that watches are exquisitely complicated technological marvels with a very long history.

Experts say the first watches were developed in Germany in around 1515. It was really just a matter of miniaturization — taking all the difficult components that used to make enormous clocks work and developing an expertise to make them very small.

Gene Stone knows a thing or two about really, really small watches. He's not only written a book about watches, but is also a watch collector. He owns what he says is the thinnest mechanical watch ever made — a Rolex carved inside a gold coin.

"Of all the watches that I own, there's no question this one gets the most applause," he told Sunday Morning host Charles Osgood. "It's really great."

Creations such as Stone's incredibly thin watch have made Switzerland the pinnacle of fine watch-making. Stone credits religion for this.

"When they all became Calvinists, John Calvin forbid them from doing jewelry, but watches were practical, so he allowed them to make watches," Stone said. "The Swiss have been the kings ever since. By the time the industrial revolution came along, no train conductor could be without an accurate pocket watch to make certain his train was running on time. But it took a war to make wristwatches popular."

Stone said wristwatches didn't become popular for men until World War I.

"Somebody had the bright idea of strapping a pocket watch to your wrist, so all of a sudden you could just look at it," he said.

Today there are as many wristwatch designs as there are minutes in the day. With the advent of quartz movements in the 1960s, accurate watches became affordable for everybody. But now that cell phones and computers now telling time, watches are no longer strictly necessary.

"Certainly for young people, they have so many other ways of telling time," Stone said. "Paradoxically, mechanical watches have emerged as the most prestigious timepieces and the most expensive."

Stone took us to an exclusive boutique so we could see some of the finest mechanical watches. Some cost as much as $200,000.

Revolution magazine editor Mathew Morse tracks the surging sales of mechanical watches and said that the industry is thriving.

"It's growing anywhere from 15 to 25 percent per year. Sales are up in dollar value in the United States for the last three years," he said.

Of course, all these watches require watchmakers. At a new school in Secaucus, N.J., the students are learning that complex watches are more than the sum of their minuscule parts.

"It has a little heart beat, which we call the balance wheel, and I love that," student Anna Bachout said.