From our sister website, WatchTime Middle East, a look at how watchmaking has countered the threat of magnetism over the years, from using metals like palladium in 1915 to silicon in 2015.

Magnetism has been the mechanical timekeeping?s nemesis through the years. It is to the mechanical watch what Prof. Moriarty is to Sherlock Holmes.  Though the watch industry has responded to this threat with many innovations through the years, we?ve always been asked this question by readers and budding watch enthusiasts: just how real is the threat of magnetic fields in our daily lives"

The industry has used everything from soft-iron shields to silicon escapements in their fight.

Before we set out to answer that questions, let’s examine what happens to a mechanical watch when it is exposed to a magnetic field. The simple truth is that certain parts of the escapement like the balance wheel and hairspring, become magnetized upon such exposure. For example, the concentric circles of the hairspring may bunch together, thus leading to friction. This could ultimately affect the escapement?s amplitude and accuracy. In most cases, once the magnetic field is removed, the watch might start running as normal again but in the case of a particularly strong magnetic field, it may stop working altogether.
In 1915, Vacheron Constantin created an anti-magnetic pocketwatch and in 1930, Tissot produced its first amagnetic watches. In both cases, palladium was used in the cons...