Killing Time - Horological Weaponry

I'm dying to tell you about this killer visual history detailing lethal miniaturized (spy) guns built inside everyday objects like pocket watches, rings, pens, locks, pipes, and even in a crucifix! The ultimate Memento Mori timepiece, the only watches that'll tell you when you're truly out of time...

For thematic purposes, here are the pocket watch guns... See the rest of the collection at Dark Roasted Blend-->Link

A very rare English 0.3 Caliber Pocket Watch Pistol

I think one of these were found on the grassy knoll outside Ford's Theatre

A ladies timepiece wasn't an obvious choice
So a Pistol Ring "Femme Fatale" was made.
circa 1870 & Packing a .6 Caliber six-shooter

From-->Dark Roasted Blend (via Core77) & thanks to Greg @ Genuine Ideas

Many More Related Posts at The Watchismo Times...

See Weapon Related Watch Posts;
Sicura Knife Watch
Wristwatches of War
1941 Panerai Commando Set
Gunpowder Flask Watch
The Defenseband - Choking Watch Strap
Movado Seduction Weapon

See Subminiature & Hidden Watch Posts;
Shoot To Kilfitt - Subminiature Camera-Watch
Subminiature Camera Watches
Steinheil Camera Watch
Victorian Camera Pocket Watch
1950s Minifon Spy Recorder Watch
Victorian Wrist Horn
Rolex Lipstick Watch
Omega Ring Watch
Rolex Ring Watch
Walking Stick Watches
James Bond Movie Gadget Watches
1947 Wrist Lighter

See Memento Mori Watch/Clock Posts;
Time of your Life and Death - Mr. Jones Watches
Time of your Life - Mr. Jones Watches
Wake Up...Time To Die Clock
1610 Screaming Skull Clock
Mary Queen of Scots Skull Watch
Rock Crystal 1710 Skull Watch
Rolling Eyeball Skull Clocks
Painfully Real Cuckoo Clock
19th Century Bone Watches
Arthropodal Watchworks
All Memento Mori Posts



| Watchismo Blog | Watchismo Shop | Contact Us | Subscribe |

Subscribe to The Watchismo Times
Enter your email

Delivered by FeedBurner

Memento Mori Death Watch - 1810 Skull Pocket Watch

click to enlarge

All clocks and watches are basically timing our ultimate demise when you think about it. And some watchmaker in 1810 really took that literally with this über goth "Memento Mori" (Latin=Rembember you are mortal, remember you will die, remember your death). 18K gold, enamel, diamond verge and fusee skull watch. 43 mm high x 27 wide x 32 deep. Sold for $16,000.

Likely the timekeeping choice of Nosferatu.

Clearly Evil - Memento Mori Crystal Skull watch from 1715 - Haunted Horology #4

This skull watch/clock, circa 1715, by watchmaker James Harmar of London was carved from rock-crystal and fitted with a gold-mounted watch. Three-body skull, made of three solid pieces of rock crystal, the top and the bottom mounted in gold engraved frames, the lower frame housing the movement, the jaw articulated on the sides opening to expose the silver champlevé with Roman chapters and half-hour divisions, outer minute ring with Arabic five-minute numerals. Blued-steel, 'beetle and poker' hands. 39.5 mm o, hinged, gilt brass full plate, tulip pillars, fusee and chain for the going train, English single-footed cock pierced and engraved with symmetrical foliage and a mask in the base, rack and pinion with silver plate. Signed on the dial and movement. Dim. Length 85 mm, width 50 mm, height 80 mm. Published in the Sandberg book (Antiquorum), pages 376-377.

Via Antiquorum

All Haunted Horology Posts;
1610 Screaming Skull Clock
Mary Queen of Scots Skull Watch
Rolling Eyeball Skull Clocks
All Memento Mori Posts

Enter The Watchismo Times 1st anniversary vintage chronograph giveway!-->LINK


| Watchismo Blog | Watchismo Shop | Contact Us | Subscribe |

Subscribe to The Watchismo Times
Enter your email

Delivered by FeedBurner

The Time of your Life and Death - Mr. Jones Watches

The Accurate, Mantra, Decider, Right or Wrong, and More or Less are all the latest limited edition conceptual timepieces from Mr. Jones Watches.

Last time I featured Mr. Jones Watches-->Link, he had an exhibition-only series of prototype electronic watches developed to explore new cultural expressions, technologies of timekeeping and how they relate to contemporary life. "Each one was the embodiment of a social critique or observation." With a perfect sense of black humor, cultural irony and dry wit, London based Crispin Jones, the man behind the Mister, described his concepts as "work which lives in the intersection between Fine Art and Design - broadly this area is known as Critical Design - using the language and tools of design to articulate a critical perspective."

Now, his latest collection has taken this concept to public consumption. Featuring analog watches with rotating discs, each style of Mr. Jones Watches will be produced in a limited numbered series of 100. (£79.99 each - approx $159) Don't lose any more time, they're close to selling out! And just released this week, a series of Mr. Jones Watch videos by artist Steve Ounanian. Click play on any of the videos below.

The Accurate

The Accurate, evolved from his original Summissus watch, it's a watch that fosters humility in the wearer by featuring a mirrored dial to reflect the viewer together with a semi-subtle Memento Mori reminder of your inevitable mortal timeframe. The hour and minute discs spell out "Remember" and "You Will Die".

Crispin mentioned, "For the Mr Jones Watches project I worked with two other designers (Ross Cooper and Graham Pullin) we took a fairly broad overview of what the watch means to people (as an object rather than as a time keeping tool). For part of the research we tried to look at interesting things which people did in the past, i'm always quite drawn to products which didn't quite succeed in the marketplace." He also let me know that my humble Watchismo websites have been "an invaluable resource for information like this."

The Accurate interpreted by Steve Ounanian->Video

The original "Summissus" from his 2004 one-off series
Site-->Link & Video-->Link

The Mantra alternates a very positive statement (e.g. "you are amazing") with a very negative one (e.g. "nobody likes you"). The Mantra makes the arrogant person more humble and makes the humble more confident.

The Mantra interpreted by Steve Ounanian-->Video

The Decider is a watch for indecisive people - when you need to make a decision you simply look at your watch to see whether it is displaying "YES" or "NO" (if you are inclined to cheat then you can pull out the winding crown which stops the mechanism giving you an answer with no ambiguity).

The watch can also answer a more complex question - when you receive it tell the watch what you want to know, then wait until the battery runs out - whatever the watch stops on YES or NO is your answer...

The Decider interpreted by Steve Ounanian-->Video

Be sure to check out his original series here-->Link
And for all five limited edition models-->Link

Related posts;
Memento Mori 1810 Skull Watch
Painfully Real Cuckoo Clock
19th Century Bone Watches
Arthropodal Watchworks
Motorcycles Watches
Japanese Steampunk Watchmaker
Art of Movement
Internal Watch
Vasarely Op-Art Watches

Enter The Watchismo Times 1st anniversary vintage chronograph giveway!-->LINK


| Watchismo Blog | Watchismo Shop | Contact Us | Subscribe |

Subscribe to The Watchismo Times
Enter your email

Delivered by FeedBurner

Haunted Horology Week! Mary Queen of Scots Skull Watch

I'm celebrating the week leading to Halloween with a variety of spooky timepieces!

Not long before Mary Queen of Scots had her own head chopped off, she had this bone chilling silver skull watch made. The case is opened by dropping the under jaw, which turns upon a hinge, while the watchworks occupy the place of the brain.

Likely one of the earliest examples of horological "Memento Mori" (artistic reminders of ones mortality).

See all my past Memento Mori watch posts-->Link

Sideview

The original engraved dial with 18th century modified to a balance-spring movement by J. Moysan of Blois, France.

Early representations of the watch
(before photography proved its existence)

It is believed Mary gave this watch as a gift to Mary Seaton, one of her maids of honor. The skull is of silver gilt and is engraved with lines of Horace, figures of Death with his scythe and hourglass, Adam and Eve, and the Crucifixion. The lower part of the skull is pierced to emit the sound when it strikes, being cut in the form of emblems of the Crucifixion. The works occupy the brain's position in the skull fitting into a silver bell which fills the entire hollow of the skulL The hours are struck on this bell by a small hammer on a separate train..

She sure must have been a barrel of laughs...

There's something about Mary...

Related Post: 1810 Skull Pocket Watch-->Link

More related posts;
Mr. Jones Watches Part I
Mr. Jones Watches Part II

Enter The Watchismo Times 1st anniversary vintage chronograph giveway!-->LINK


| Watchismo Blog | Watchismo Shop | Contact Us | Subscribe |

Subscribe to The Watchismo Times
Enter your email

Delivered by FeedBurner

The Most Accurate Watch in the World

The Accurate, a watch that fosters humility in the wearer by featuring a mirrored dial to reflect the viewer together with a semi-subtle Memento Mori reminder of your inevitable mortal timeframe. The hour and minute discs spell out "Remember" and "You Will Die".

The dial and rim of the glass on the Accurate is mirrored, so that the wearer is reflected in the watch face (so that there is no ambiguity about who the message is aimed at). The Accurate is a link to the venerable tradition of the Memento Mori - an object designed to remind us that life is brief and that we should seize the moment while we are here.

A statement from artist/designer Crispin Jones about the design of "Mr. Jones Watches":

"Today everyone has a mobile phone to do the really functional timekeeping, this means that the wristwatch is free to do something a bit different. The watches I design reflect and comment on society, both on the role that time plays in all our lives and also on the social impact of technology. Of course because I would like people to wear these watches, I also work very hard to make them beautiful objects in their own right."

Now Available for $145 here-->Link

Also featuring the "Mantra" (below)

The Mantra alternates a very positive statement (e.g. "you are amazing") with a very negative one (e.g. "nobody likes you").Every hour the watch displays one positive message and one negative message (the wedge that you read the statement through is also the hour hand).

Over time The Mantra makes the arrogant person more humble and makes the humble more confident.

The Mantra is inspired by the psychological theories of Émile Coué who promoted the practice of conscious autosuggestion, that is the repeition of positive statements to heal the body or mind; most famously with the phrase "Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better."

MJW Mantra $145 -->Link

And the MJW "Decider" (below)

The Decider is a watch that helps you make decisions: as the seconds tick round you see either the word "YES" or "NO" displayed on the watch face; when you need to make a decision you simply look at your watch for your answer.

If you are inclined to cheat then you can pull out the winding crown which stops the mechanism temporarily giving you an answer with no ambiguity.

The watch can also answer a more complex question - when you receive it tell the watch what you want to know, then wait until the battery runs out - whatever the watch stops on YES or NO is your final answer...

The Decider doesn't necessarily make the right decision every time, but as the American motivational speaker Brian Tracy puts it, "Decisiveness is a characteristic of high-performing men and women. Almost any decision is better than no decision at all."

or as another contemporary philosopher puts it: "A wrong decision is better than indecision." Anthony 'Tony' Soprano, in "The Sopranos"



Decider $145 -->Link
Animation of watch in motion->link


| Watchismo Blog | Watchismo Shop | Contact Us | Subscribe |

Subscribe to The Watchismo Times
Enter your email

Delivered by FeedBurner

How Much Time Do You Have Left? - New Special Edition Black PVD Coated Accurate and Decider Watches by Mr. Jones

Mr Jones Watches have produced two new special edition watches. Both models
feature black PVD coating which gives a hard-wearing, elegant finish.

These are serious watches for the serious times we find ourselves in. The black coating on the watch case is matched on the buckle and completed with a black leather strap and (what else!) black stitching.

Mr Jones Watches is the new cult watch brand from London. They believe that a watch should do more than just tell the time.

All the Mr Jones Watches are designed by Crispin Jones, they are genuine indie products entirely conceived and executed following a singular vision.

These models will be available for a limited period only.

This is a special edition of the most accurate wristwatch you can buy - the hour hand reads "remember", the minute hand "you will die".

The dial and rim of the glass are mirrored, so the wearer is reflected in the watch face.The Accurate is a link to the tradition of the memento mori - an object designed to remind us that life is brief and that we should seize the moment while we are here.

The Accurate is our best selling model and we're very pleased with how well this special edition looks on the wrist.

The Accurate, Special edition: $125

Product Page-->LINK






The New Decider helps you make decisions. As the seconds tick round the words “yes” and “no” are alternately displayed.

When you need to make a decision, simply glance at the watch for your answer. A magnifying dome sits just above the answer window to aid visibility.

The New Decider may not always give the right decision, but as Tony Soprano observes,“a wrong decision is better than indecision”.

The New Decider, Special edition: $145

Product page-->LINK

Other recently released Mr. Jones Watches featured below;

MR. JONES - THE AVERAGE DAY

This watch eschews the conventional division of a day into 24 hours, instead it divides into units of median daily routine.

The dial shows a breakdown of what average people do on an average day, so you’re able to see what you yourself should - on average - be doing at any time.

Mr. Jones The Mantra

The Mantra alternates a very positive statement (e.g. "you are amazing") with a very negative one (e.g. "nobody likes you"). Every hour the watch displays one positive message and one negative message (the wedge that you read the statement through is also the hour hand).

Over time The Mantra makes the arrogant person more humble and makes the humble more confident.

Mr. Jones Original "The Decider"

The Decider is a watch that helps you make decisions: as the seconds tick round you see either the word "YES" or "NO" displayed on the watch face; when you need to make a decision you simply look at your watch for your answer.

MR. JONES THE FUTURE

The Future is now! This watch displays a carpe diem message along with the time. The hour and minute hand make up the words “the future”, whilst the face alternately displays “is” and “now”. This watch is a handy reminder to the wearer to live in the present.

MR. JONES THE WATCHER

Two characters on the watch enact a tiny choreographed play. They look all around, but never rest on the other’s gaze. The faces keep their tiny vigil on your wrist and are always ready to share a moment of micro-poetry whenever you look at your watch.

The two faces each have a small magnifying dome over them to aid visibility.

Mr. Jones LOVES ME

The design of this watch is inspired by the game of effeuiller la marguerite in which “loves me, loves me not” is spoken while plucking the petals of a flower.

Loves Me acts as a never-ending, animated flower that answers love dilemmas: pulling up the winding crown stops the mechanism and reveals cupid’s verdict.

The Original ACCURATE

MR. JONES MORE OR LESS

This watch offers you two ways of looking at the passing of time - around the circumference of the dial the words "one more, one less" slowly revolve. This presents a balanced way of viewing the passing of time in our lives.

Product Pages--> LINK

Related posts at The Watchismo Times;
Haunted Horology
All Memento Mori Stories
Mystery Dial Stories
Concept Watches
Artist Watch Stories
Designer Stories

| Watchismo Blog | Watchismo Shop | Contact Us | Subscribe |

Time of your Life with Mr. Jones Watches

Summissus

If time is relative, Mr. Jones is your creepy Uncle Bob.

'Mr Jones Watches' are a line of seven conceptual yet functional timepieces designed and built by UK Critical Designer Crispin Jones. Created to explore new cultural expressions, technologies of timekeeping and how they relate to contemporary life. The creations are most hauntingly documented in each model's promo video. The 'Summissus' watch (above), symbolic of the Memento Mori, a philosophical expression preaching humility and the mortal timeframe is reduced to a mirror-finished dial (for self-awareness) and LCD display (for the real time).

Adsiduus

Auto-suggestive 'Adsiduus', with repetitive displays of positive or negative mantras with each time display, intended to produce personality change of the wearer.

Fallax

The 'Fallax' quoting Mr. Jones himself, "projects the wearer’s status to the people around them. Whilst many watches aim to project a sense of the wearer’s wealth and style, Fallax projects the wearer’s honesty. The watch contains a lie-detector which is attached via a pair of finger straps. If the watch detects a lie then the display flashes up the word “LIES”.

Fallax LED Display

Docilis

Made up of skeletal material, the 'Docilis' is intended to train the wearer to internalize the time with regular intervals of electric shocks.