Have you ever wondered if a “17-jewel watch” contains real jewels, or if “jewel” is only the name of some mechanical part of the watch?
The jewels in jeweled watches are real jewels, and they’re inside the watch, not on the dial. Sometimes these jewels are merely little bits of gem-like stones, but at one time diamonds and sapphires were used!
Inside a watch there are tiny wheels that remain in motion when the watch is ticking.
Since the wheels and other parts of the watch are always moving against one another, they wear down. So, to make the parts last as long as possible, watchmakers place between them tiny bits of the hardest substances available, gemstones. The more jewels a watch has, the longer it should last before its inner parts wear down.
Some of the screws inside a watch are so tiny that more than 30,000 of them could fit in the palm of your hand!
