A separate archiveGlobal Jumping Hour Watch Library
Mondia Mystery automatic chronograph

A Horological Archive

The Art of
the Snap.

A private collection of jumping hour complications and the timepieces that accompany them — curated, catalogued, and quietly obsessed over.

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§ Collection

The Vault.

A living catalogue, arranged by complication and intention. Click any specimen to enter its world.

02

Vintage Watches

Vintage / Neo-Vintage

Omega Seamaster Chronostop Roulette Ref. 145.008

Omega Seamaster Chronostop Roulette Ref. 145.008

A large late-1960s Omega Seamaster Chronostop with the unusual rotating “Roulette” internal scale and Cal. 865 movement.

IWC Cal. 89 “Shark Fin”

IWC Cal. 89 “Shark Fin”

A circa-1956 37 mm IWC with the celebrated manual-wind Cal. 89 and distinctive sculpted “Shark Fin” lugs.

Ulysse Nardin Ref. 10921-9 Automatic Date

Ulysse Nardin Ref. 10921-9 Automatic Date

A circa-1970s Ulysse Nardin Ref. 10921-9 automatic date watch with a steel case and fluted bezel.

Omega Constellation C-Case

Omega Constellation C-Case

A vintage Omega Constellation C-Case automatic chronometer with grey dial, date and fluted white-gold bezel.

Omega Genève Dynamic Automatic Date

Omega Genève Dynamic Automatic Date

A wonderfully distinctive first-generation Omega Dynamic Automatic Date with a beautiful blue and silver bullseye dial.

Omega vintage Seamaster
Open to offers

Omega vintage Seamaster

Always Omega

Omega 33 mm Small Seconds

Omega 33 mm Small Seconds

A mid-1930s 33 mm Omega in steel with Cal. 26.5 SOB T2, Arabic numerals, blued hands and subsidiary seconds.

Longines Ref. 7823 Roman Dial

Longines Ref. 7823 Roman Dial

A slim vintage Longines Ref. 7823 with a silver sunburst dial, black Roman numerals and manual-wind movement.

Seiko 6309-7040 Turtle

Seiko 6309-7040 Turtle

A vintage Seiko 6309-7040 Turtle, one of Seiko’s best-known automatic dive watches of the late 1970s and 1980s.

Doxa Anti-Magnetique Jumbo 38 mm

Doxa Anti-Magnetique Jumbo 38 mm

A large-for-its-era 1950s Doxa Anti-Magnetique manual-wind watch in a 38 mm stainless-steel case.

Girard-Perregaux 17 Jewels Small Seconds

Girard-Perregaux 17 Jewels Small Seconds

A beautifully preserved mid-century Girard-Perregaux, with a two-tone textured dial, 17-jewel manual movement and classic small seconds.

Eterna-Matic 1000
Sold

Eterna-Matic 1000

A late-1960s Eterna-Matic 1000 automatic with a well-preserved silver dial, date and tonneau-shaped steel case.

04

For Sale (look what I found in my drawers)

Rolex Submariner Ref. 16610
Sold

Rolex Submariner Ref. 16610

The iconic of them all

Modernista Pocket Watch
Open to offers

Modernista Pocket Watch

A Modernista pocket watch, with jumping hour and retrograde minutes.

Omega vintage Seamaster
Open to offers

Omega vintage Seamaster

Always Omega

Wancher Mechanical Chronograph II (Cream Panda Dial)
Sold

Wancher Mechanical Chronograph II (Cream Panda Dial)

A vintage-inspired manual chronograph powered by the legendary Seagull ST1901 column-wheel movement.

TUMI Dual Time
Open to offers

TUMI Dual Time

An almost-NOS Swiss-made TUMI Dual Time travel watch with original integrated bracelet and fresh battery.

Orologi 210G
Open to offers

Orologi 210G

A pristine 1990s Fendi Orologi 210G with silver dial, original steel bracelet and freshly replaced battery.

DS Quartz
Open to offers

DS Quartz

A clean 1990s Certina DS quartz with sapphire crystal, classic silver dial and understated Swiss styling.

Eterna-Matic 1000
Sold

Eterna-Matic 1000

A late-1960s Eterna-Matic 1000 automatic with a well-preserved silver dial, date and tonneau-shaped steel case.

Pagani Design PD-1796 Open Heart Automatic
Open to offers

Pagani Design PD-1796 Open Heart Automatic

An affordable automatic that earned a place in my collection simply because it made me curious about the brand.

Seastar N580
Open to offers

Seastar N580

A clean late-1980s Tissot Seastar N580 with classic silver dial and slim Swiss quartz construction.

Sicura Elegance
Open to offers

Sicura Elegance

An eccentric 1970s Sicura Elegance with a 35 mm wide rectangular case and an unusual offset circular time display.

Visodate Automatic Seastar
Open to offers

Visodate Automatic Seastar

A characterful 1960s Tissot Visodate Automatic Seastar with a beautiful vertically textured silver dial.

§ Journal

Field Notes.

Portrait

§ The Collector

A quiet obsession with the hour that jumps.

Welcome! I'm Guy Nevo, a lifelong watch enthusiast with a particular fascination for jumping hour watches. Like many collectors, I didn't set out to specialize. Over the years I've owned and enjoyed all kinds of watches, from vintage Swiss pieces to modern mechanical designs. But somewhere along the way I discovered the jumping hour complication, and it completely changed the way I looked at watches. There's something deeply satisfying about the way a jumping hour tells time. Instead of an hour hand slowly creeping across the dial, the hour waits patiently before changing in one precise, mechanical instant. It's a simple idea, but one that combines clever engineering with an unmistakable sense of character. What began with a single vintage jumping hour soon turned into a passion for discovering the many ways different manufacturers interpreted the complication. From elegant Art Deco designs to the bold and unconventional watches of the 1970s, each piece tells a different story. Hunting for unusual models has taken me across countries, into auctions, watch fairs, online marketplaces, and conversations with fellow collectors around the world. This website is a way to document that journey. Every watch shown here is part of my collection, photographed and researched individually. Whenever possible, I've included information about the history of the brand, the movement, and the design, together with my own observations and photographs. Although jumping hours are the heart of the collection, you'll also find many other watches that I simply admire for their design, history, engineering, or the stories behind them. Great watches don't have to be rare or expensive; they just have to have something that makes them worth remembering. I hope this collection becomes a useful resource for fellow collectors, especially for anyone curious about the wonderfully unconventional world of jumping hour watches. If it helps identify an obscure model, sparks a new collecting interest, or simply introduces someone to this remarkable complication, then it has done exactly what I hoped it would.

Based between the wrist and the workbench.

§ The Complication

The Jumping Hour.

The jumping hour, or heure sautante, abandons the conventional hour hand. Instead, the hour is displayed through a small window in the dial, where a printed numeral remains perfectly still for almost sixty minutes. Then, exactly at the top of the hour, the mechanism releases its stored energy and the disc snaps instantly to the next number. That instant is the complication's whole character. The hour doesn't slowly creep around the dial. It simply appears. It looks deceptively simple, but making that jump happen without affecting the watch's accuracy is a remarkable piece of engineering. Throughout the hour, the movement gradually stores energy in a tiny spring. At the end of the cycle, a lever releases that energy in a fraction of a second, advancing a star wheel connected to the hour disc. By storing the energy little by little and releasing it all at once, the movement avoids placing a sudden load on the escapement. It's one of those mechanisms that is much easier to appreciate once you've seen it in action. Although digital displays feel surprisingly modern, the jumping hour complication actually dates back more than two centuries. One of the earliest known examples was created by the French watchmaker Antoine Blondeau in the early nineteenth century. In 1883, Austrian engineer Josef Pallweber patented a mechanism displaying the hours and minutes through apertures, a design that IWC famously licensed and produced in pocket watches. The complication found its first golden age during the Art Deco era of the 1920s and 1930s. Its clean, geometric display suited the design language of the period perfectly, and distinguished houses such as Cartier, Audemars Piguet and Rolex all produced memorable jumping-hour wristwatches. It enjoyed another revival during the 1970s, when bold case designs and futuristic styling encouraged many Swiss manufacturers to experiment with direct-read mechanical watches. The result was an extraordinary variety of jumping hour models, from elegant dress watches to chunky tonneau cases and space-age designs that have become highly collectible today. As collector and researcher Ruud van Rijn (@jumphourking) has documented over the years, one of the great attractions of jumping hour watches is the sheer variety of designs they inspired. Few complications have been interpreted in so many different ways, across so many brands and price ranges. Once you begin looking for them, you discover jumping hours everywhere, each with its own personality. Today, the complication is enjoying another renaissance. Independent watchmakers continue to reinterpret the concept in creative ways, while high horology has pushed it to extraordinary levels. Perhaps the best-known modern example is the A. Lange & Söhne Zeitwerk, whose constant-force mechanism provides enough energy to advance large digital displays every minute while maintaining exceptional accuracy. Whether found in a nineteenth-century pocket watch, an Art Deco classic, a bold 1970s design, or a modern independent creation, the appeal remains the same. The jumping hour replaces the continuous sweep of time with a precise, instantaneous change, creating a display that is both mechanically ingenious and visually distinctive. More than two hundred years after its invention, it remains one of the most fascinating complications in watchmaking. Recommended Sources Swisswatches Magazine – Collector's Choice: Ruud van Rijn Talks Jump Hour Watches. Watchonista – A Giant Leap: Diving into the World of Jump-Hour Watches. Chrono24 Magazine – Jump Hour Watches: Development, Mechanics, and Technical Principles. European Watch Company – A Guide to the Jump Hour Complication.

First seen
Late 1800s
Aperture
Hour numeral
Release
Once per hour
Character
The snap

§ Contact

Get in touch.

General questions are always welcome. Wishlist pieces marked "open to offers" invite serious proposals and trades — tell me what you have.