Abacus Series 2 watch by Roy Schäfer

The watch today doesn't have any hands, or a disc, and it isn't LCD or LED! It's also pretty bad for trying to get an accurate time reading on.

It was produced by the Erich Lacher Watch Company or Laco from Germany and designed by Roy Schäfer. The Laco company was founded in 1925, and specialise in high quality, high tech watches. Roy Schäfer was born in 1967, and with the Abacus, set out to design a watch with the principal of "Reduce to the max". With that, he produced the Abacus series 1 in 1999 and the series 2 shortly after.

The watch is very simple, there are no hands or normal display, just a ring with circles and dashes, and a ball bearing. Behind the face is a magnet attached to the movement, and so when the ball bearing attaches itself to the magnet, you can see the time. It is the equivalent of just having an hour hand, but the size of the ball and the small circles means that you can tell the time with enough accuracy for most purpose (same as the Chromachron I blogged a while ago). If the ball covers a circle, it is on the hour, if it just touches the edge of the circle, it is quarter past (or to), and halfway between is half past (which you probably had already worked out).

The watch design is also simple looking, but with nice touches. The crown is inset so you can't see it from above, the calf leather strap connects into the watch body, and the back is shaped and engraved, connecting with small inset screws. It actually uses a sapphire crystal for the glass, and is overall 3atm water resistant. It was originally sold for $245 (at least series 1 was, so I'm assuming that this was similar).