What Is a Chronograph?

Have you ever wondered what is a chronograph? Or how it works? Well, chronographs are generally more expensive and have multiple sub-dials.  And, in fact, many luxury timepieces are called chronographs. For example, the above Rolex Daytona is a chronograph.  So,  is a chronograph simply a watch with multiple sub-dials?  Well, not exactly…. it’s actually a “stopwatch”! Technically it’s a display watch combined with a stopwatch.

In 1821 King Louis XVIII called for the invention of the chronograph and enlisted Nicolas Rieussec’s help.  An avid horse racing fan, the king wanted to know how long each race lasted and needed a tool that could measure the time. Sounds quite practical…

Anyway, the stopwatch function went on to serve many people for many reasons and is now an essential tool in most watches. Derived from the Greek words “chronos” (for time) and “graph” (for writing), a chronograph is meant to help us write time.

Chronograph watches have extra sub-dials and push buttons on the case of the watch.  These extra push buttons are used to start, stop and reset the timing function.

Check out our collection of pre-owned chronograph watches!

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronograph