watch handsets

Hands are definitely a large part of a watch's appeal for me as well. I can't stand Mercedes or cathedral hands, so any watch with either type puts me off. 

I think I’m over it, but those Sinn hands really bothered me for some time. For whatever reason, the more I look at a watch the more I tend to like it. 

Yes cathedral handset's are a tricky one. Generally soo large I think the proportions get knocked for the rest of the dial.

I have this problem. As mentioned in other posts I love sinn as a brand. Tool watch thing really sits in my wheel house. The U1 style, ceacking watch and I want one. Almost went there on 3 occasions but I stop myself as I struggle with the hands. Like you say you can get over certain things but I wonder if dropping 2k odd to find out is worth the anxiety 

100% yes. I’m a huge fan of skeleton hands, so naturally I’m drawn to watches like the JLC Polaris Mariner and the Omega Seamaster 300m. Even one of my G Shocks has skeletons. I also love broad arrows. I have an Aqua Terra which has a minor version of that and really like broad arrow Speedys and the Planet Ocean line. I also like syringe hands, so there’s a ton of Seiko’s I like. 
 

But I can’t buy any watch with Snowflake hands or Dauphine hands. I have to love the hands to buy the watch. 
 

100% agree with you on the Sinn U1. Those are hideous (For me).

I dislike the "fussy" nature of them. Why break-up the hand into smaller sections? It does nothing but add complexity for the sake of complexity. 

How can you talk about handsets without showing a single true handset???!

😜

I don't mind snowflake hands, I just prefer them with square hour markers like in the Pelagos. I think Tudor should just do Mercedes hands on the BB58.

thank god. there's more than one of us 😀

as much as i hate the snowflake handset, i can swallow it a little more on the Pelagos. The blue dial with crisp white square markers and hands does standout. But My head goblin slaps me when i get close to actually pulling the trigger on one 

Isn't that the whole point of buying a watch.  You have to love looking at it otherwise whatever you "nitpick" about it will constantly rear it's head.  I like Tudor but the hands are a turn off for me. 

I believe that the hands on your Omega are pencil hands due to the pointed ends.  Blunt ends would be stick / baton, but the legibility factor is the same.

I never saw the point of the Snowflake or Mercedes hands.  Of the four styles of hands on my watches, I find the batons on the Seikos to be the cleanest and most legible, although the Dauphine style on my vintage Swiss mechanical is appropriate for the age and overall design.  That’s part of the equation; you wouldn’t put ornate hands on an otherwise Bauhaus design watch.

Weird thing is, I like syringe hands and that Sinn U1 are basically syringe hands. But there is a big difference between that and this (which is the best of all worlds, skeleton hands and syringe hands, yet still lumed!).

the syringe hands you pictured are lovely, I'd be happy with those on a piece. i see where you're coming from with the Sinn but to me there just wrong. 

Soz. i will give myself 10 lashes 

What kind of degenerate puts the milk in before the cereal? 🤣

Its the correct way. Milk in. Cereal in. Keep topping up the cereal every few bites keeps it nice and crunchy. 

Unless you prefer soggy cereal. 😕

Fully agree on the snowflake hands, they do look like somethings been broken off. Personally I love cathedral hands, you see them on ww2 era divers watches and on Tuesday alpinist and they just look   👌😚. But we all know the most crucial part of hands is how much glowy goodness seiko can shove into them

Weird thing is, I like syringe hands and that Sinn U1 are basically syringe hands.

I always had the weird feeling that the U1 is giving me the middle finger. Maybe that's just me ...

My decade old Timex Easy Reader is nearly perfect, but the stick hands, while a miniscule offense compared to the atrocity of the Sinn Lego syringe hands, are truly a fly in the ointment. Would a little point at the end cost that much?

I concur that snowfake hands are unforgivable, cereal goes in before milk, and that only haters of beauty dislike cathedral hands.

I dislike Mercedes and Snowflake hands.  All other types are preferable, even Breguet hands

I like Breguet hands (or derivations of Breguet hands) when the circle actually serves a purpose of highlighting something on the dial, like this Tuseno Shellback. The opening highlights "Shellback" on the dial when the hour hand goes from 5-7 am/pm. To me, that's cool.

Eat faster, and use less milk. 😉😁

Breguet hands are lovely as are the numerals. Grail brand is Breguet (for me) totally underrated against the likes of PP, AP, VC

funny how these little things make such a big impact. Out of my collection, the best hands are....

the Marine - the blue hands and the guilloche dial are perpetually beautiful

the Explorer II - the white lume set in the deep black enamel of the hands is is just lovely...

The Black Bay 58 in blue....but only in blue. The Snowflakes just don't look right (to me) on any Tudor wiht a more vintage vibe - but for me, they are just lovely on the blue watches (BB58, FXD and Blue Pelagos).

finally the JLC reserve du marche - not a great photo, but the heavily bezelled hands with the crisp, thin lume on the spine just look lovely against this dial. Also, the way they catch the light  means you get near perfect legibility at all angles, despite them being mirror-polished. Finally, I love the way the hands mirror the triangular batons......

for my own pelasure, I like to see and handle a watch to help me make my mind up on it. some (you mentioned the sinn U1) look dreadful in photos, but are far more impressive in real life - photos, no matter how good, only offer a uni-dimensional image - but for me, the real joy of hands is how the light plays off them, the dynamic visuals they create as they move, and the way they complement the dial, batons and other dial furniture.....

Amen to that - my Marine Big Date is still my favourite face out of all my watches....by some way...

The hands have a huge impact on both the aesthetics of a watch, and on legibility. The first watch I bought when I started getting interested in watches had white gold hands on a silver colored dial. They look great, but unless the lighting is just right, legibility is an issue.  My favorite watches tend to be those where the minute hand extends to the minute track, and where the hour hand is of sufficiently shorter length as to allow easy differentiation between the two, while still pointing close to the hour marker.  Chronographs are my favorite complication, but "thick" hands (including the Omega broad arrow hands)  can end up obscuring the chronograph sub dials. One of the ideal hand sets in my opinion are the hands on my Speedmaster 57. Between the contrast of the hands against the dial, and the way that the facets of the hand are angled to reflect the light, this is one of my most legible watches in my collection, and the hands are skinny enough that they don't really obscure the sub dials.

I'm pretty happy with most watch hands as long as they aren't too phallic. 

Wow, we might be hands-brothers. I feel exactly the same. I can’t stand the snowflake hand, nor the Sinn‘s hands. But I really love the broad arrow hand and also IWC Pilot‘s hands. I like it when the hands are tapering at the tip, like an arrow, a pointy tip or sword hands, but I don’t like fat , even or blocky hands

Mercedes hands grew on me over time. No mistaking the hour hand ever!