6 of the best jump hour watches that make time-telling easier and cooler

Buffy Acacia

As much as people love to romanticise a traditional analogue clock, people have been looking for easier ways to read the time for centuries. It’s not that reading an hour and minutes hand is that hard, but reading numerals is instant. Jump hour complications have been around since the 1800s, giving immediate confirmation of the day’s hour before letting you get on with reading the minutes. They’re a precursor to modern digital displays, and still an intriguing complication with an air of mystery and class.

Svalbard Time Travel HX11

Svalbard specialises in the cheap and cheerful, with a depth of design you’ll rarely find for such low prices. The Time Travel HX11 is flavoured like a sports car’s tachometer, with a grained black dial, bold white printing, and stark orange highlights towards the end of the retrograde minutes display. It’s powered by a quartz Miyota movement without a ticking seconds hand to give it away, with an instantaneous snap of the hour when the minutes hand reaches 60. It’s a chunky thing at 44.2mm in diameter, 54mm lug-to-lug and 13.5mm thick, but what it lacks in moderation it gains in fun factor. Price: US$279

Mr Jones Number Cruncher

Jump hour watches seem to take themselves either incredibly seriously or not seriously at all, and the Mr Jones Number Cruncher is possibly the least serious one of all. Featuring a Godzilla-esque cartoon creature by artist Onorio D’Epiro, we see the monster joyously wandering through London and devouring time. The jump hour display sits between its fingers ready to be popped into the jaws of death, while the minutes can be seen in an X-ray display of its belly. It’s even powered by the mechanical TY2709 movement from SeaGull, offering a 21,600vph beat rate and a 42 hour power reserve. The case is 37mm in diameter with a 46.9mm lug-to-lug and a 10.8mm thickness, perfectly comfortable for any gender. Price: £295 (~US$375)

SpaceOne Black Steel Jumping Hour

There are plenty of brands who love tie-ins with space, but very few brave enough to release a watch modelled like an actual spaceship. SpaceOne has that wonderful mixture of creativity, daring, and affordability that all microbrands should strive for, and its signature watch is the SpaceOne Jumping Hour. The jumping hours and rotating minutes are visible within a sapphire cockpit, while the steel case remains both aerodynamic and ergonomic with a left-hand crown. It’s powered by a Soprod calibre P024 with a jump hour module by Theo Auffret, allowing it to have a reliable 38 hour power reserve with a 4Hz beat rate, and still be affordable in many of its various materials and finishes. Price: €1,700 (~US$1,795)

Fears Brunswick 40.5 Jump Hour Raven Black

Fears and Christopher Ward teamed up to produce the Alliance 01 – a jump hour watch to celebrate strength in independent British watchmaking. Now, Fears has taken that concept and revived it in limited production, as well as an altered dial. Although it’s thoroughly modern in its cleanliness of execution, the sector dial design with its central minutes sub-dial and jump hour window at 12 o’clock captures the elegance of vintage jump hour watches. A variety of dial finishes mirrors the alternating brushing and polishing on the case of the watch, creating a lot of visual depth despite an air of minimalism. Christopher Ward’s presence can still be felt through the automatic JJ01 movement, featuring a CW module on a Sellita SW200 base. What’s more, it’s available from the Time+Tide Shop. Price: US$8,100

A. Lange & Söhne Zeitwerk

First released in 2009, the A. Lange & Söhne Zeitwerk has challenged watchmaking’s perceptions of both tradition and modernity. Although it’s fully mechanical, the display can technically be described as digital, featuring a jump hour on the left and jumping minutes on the right. The base model Zeitwerk was reworked in 2022 for a slight facelift and power reserve boost up to 72 hours with a constant-force escapement, as well as a gorgeous German silver movement on display through the sapphire caseback. It’s a taste of Glashütte watchmaking at its best, with a truly captivating dial layout and incredible finishing. Price: US$101,000

Blancpain Tourbillon Heure Sautante Minutes Retrograde

Blancpain is among the oldest watch brands in the world, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it by glancing at a catalogue. The brand doesn’t dwell much on its heritage, preferring to showcase its dive watch pedigree with the famous Fifty Fathoms. However, the Blancpain Tourbillon Heure Sautante Minutes Retrograde is one example where classicism wins out. The dial is almost barren but for a retrograde minutes subdial that contains the jump hour window, and a large aperture above it for the tourbillon which is the ultimate eye candy in luxury watchmaking. On a solid 18k red gold mille mailles (thousand stitches) bracelet, it’s a true taste of decadence in simplicity. Price: US$188,400

Time+Tide Timeless Pick: Omega De Ville Prestige Jump Hour

Honestly, there are tonnes of cool jump hour watches from the ‘70s and ‘80s that are begging for new homes. Whether they’re beyond servicing or just made by unrecognised brands, you won’t struggle to find one to fit your budget. There are rare and desirable models from the Holy Trinity too, but one of the most fascinating jump hour watches is the Omega De Ville Prestige Jump Hour. Produced only for a small amount of time in 1998, the use of a tonneau case shape was highly unusual for Omega, especially in the Pierce Brosnan era of James Bond wearing his Seamaster Diver 300M. Its salmon dial was decorated with flamboyant fanned textures, and the skeletonised minute hand almost has a kind of Alice in Wonderland distortion to its shape. They’re not impossible to find, nor are they unreasonably priced, but they’ll certainly be a central curiosity in any collection. Price: ~US$7,000