Lollipop hands are watch hands with a long, slender shaft ending in a solid round disc, like a sweet on a stick. The style is used mostly for the seconds hand. It is uncommon, partly because these hands tended to crack, and it appears mostly on vintage watches and on modern revivals.
What does a lollipop hand look like?
The hand is a long, thin shaft with a round disc at its end. That round tip is the defining feature of the style, and it is where the name comes from. On most watches that use it, the lollipop is the seconds hand, so the disc sweeps around the dial. Some versions add a triangle above the circle. The hands on certain Tudor Submariners take this form, with the triangle and the disc sitting together near the tip.
Which watches have lollipop hands?
The style turns up most often on vintage watches. Later examples of the vintage Omega Seamaster 300 CK 2913 carry a lollipop seconds hand. Auction house Phillips has listed a vintage Omega with a centre seconds hand, a rotating bezel and a lollipop hand. Modern models that revive older designs use it too, and the 2021 Omega Seamaster is one example. Omega brought the lollipop central seconds hand back on its current Seamaster 300 as a reference to the model’s history. It also found a way to make the hands more durable, so cracking is less of a problem on its watches.
Not to be confused with
A Mercedes hand looks much like a lollipop hand, because it also has a circle near the tip. The difference is inside the circle: the Mercedes hand adds a three-pointed star. A Breguet hand also carries a circle, but it is an open ring. On a lollipop hand the circle is solid. So a filled disc points to a lollipop hand, a hollow ring to a Breguet hand, and a star inside the ring to a Mercedes hand.
Checked