In the 17th century, a period of experimentation began into how best to represent time. It was during this period of innovation that "Sun and Moon" watches – which literally showed the passing of time with moving images of these celestial bodies – became popular. The Sun and Moon Watch from Mr Jones Watches is a revival of this design, eschewing the familiar segmented face with hands and numerals showing the exact hour and minute in favor of visual representations of day and night.
The watch uses a crescent design, whereby only the top half of the face of the watch is utilized. A disc with images depicting day and night turns, with the position of the sun and the moon used to indicate the time. The sun rises on the far-left, indicating it's 6 am, hitting the central position at midday, and eventually setting on the far-right as the moon rises on the left to indicate 6 pm. The moon then travels across the face following the same pattern as the sun to indicate midnight and 6 am.
Luckily, for those who need to keep more accurate time, a minute marker is included in the center of the face. Every segment represents an interval of five minutes, meaning it should be possible to tell the time to within the nearest minute without too much trouble.
The Sun and Moon Watch is a limited edition timepiece with just 100 available, each one costing US$199.99. The face is made of brushed stainless steel, with the strap made of black leather with ecru stitching.
Time-lapse movement of the watch can be seen in the video below.
Source: Watchismo via Ubergizmo
$199 is cheap for an artsy, limited edition watch. 'Course what's inside is just a disc in place of the hour hand and another disc with a slot between the hour and minute hands. I bet the mechanism is some mass production one.