Legendary Figures of Watchmaking: Josef Pallweber

There are some iconic complications, but none as special as the jump hour complication. The man who pioneered the complication? Josef Pallweber.

Pallweber was born in Salzburg, Austria in 1858 was became an engineer as a young person. He began working on a couple of inventions that really focused on digitalizing the way we read time. In 1883, he filed a patent to mark his name in the history books as the inventor of the jump hour complication with a digital display. As any inventor would, he sold the licenses to his patent to a company called Cortébert Watch and IWC in 1885 who began creating jump hour watches using his invention. This complication was one of the most important parts of IWC history.

Not only can you think of countless companies that use this similar jump hour complication like Cartier, the digital display has become iconic for many other watch brands like A. Lange & Söhne and Wittnauer. All of their designs however, come from this Pallweber patent. To celebrate 150 years, IWC came out with a tribute to the original Pallweber pocket watches and released a wrist watch that mimics the same design aspects as the Pallweber’s pocket watch.

There is a website that seems to have acquired the rights to the Josef Pallweber name, but it is currently not active. We hope to see the brand come back to life and continue to legacy of Josef Pallweber.

Enjoy!