Guess the Watch Brand Quiz

A watch brand puts one shape on every dial: a crown, a cross, a star, a shield. This quiz shows 20 of these marks, and you type the brand behind each one.

No card shows the brand name. Where a logo normally carries its name, the name is cut away: Omega keeps only its letter, Hublot only its H, Zenith only its star, TAG Heuer only its empty shield.

The first cards are the marks that every shop window teaches you: the Rolex crown, the Apple apple, the TAG Heuer shield.

The harder cards come from high horology. The Patek Philippe cross, the Vacheron Constantin cross and the Corum key mark watches most people never hold.

Each solved card shows the country the brand comes from. Switzerland takes most of the board.

How to play

• Just start typing. The quiz checks your answer at every keystroke. There is no submit button.
• A correct name flips its card and shows the brand's name and its country.
• You can answer in any order. The name you type solves the matching card wherever it sits on the grid.
• Everyday names count. "Apple Watch" solves Apple, "Swiss Army" solves Victorinox, and "Officine Panerai" solves Panerai.
• Spelling is forgiving. Capitals, accents and punctuation are ignored, and frequent misspellings such as "Brietling" and "Tag Hauer" are accepted.
• The timer starts at your first keystroke and counts up. Give Up ends the run and shows every brand you missed. Progress saves automatically.

What counts in this quiz

• 20 of the biggest watch brands, from luxury houses to smartwatch makers.
• Every card is a symbol, never a name. Some marks are already only a symbol. The rest have the name cut off the picture.
• Swiss luxury houses, one Italian house, and the American smartwatch makers appear on the same board.
• Apple, Garmin and Fitbit are here because they sell more watches than anyone. Apple alone sells more watches than the whole Swiss industry.
• Every logo is a freely licensed Wikimedia Commons file. Three need credit, and the credits sit under the grid.

What's not included — and why

• A brand whose logo is only its name cannot be a card. Seiko, Casio, Citizen, Swatch, Cartier, Richard Mille and Chopard have no symbol to separate from the name, so they are left out.
• IWC and Grand Seiko are left out because their mark is their own initials. The card would spell the answer.
• Some brands are missing for a different reason. Rado, Bulova, Jaeger-LeCoultre and Ulysse Nardin have a real symbol, but no freely licensed file shows it, so the quiz cannot show them.
• Sub-brands and product lines are not counted as separate cards. Only the parent mark appears.
• Apple and Rolex also appear in the Guess the Brand quiz, because a watch board without Rolex would be incomplete.

Good to know

• The Rolex crown has five points. A popular story says they stand for the five fingers of a hand, because a Rolex was meant to be won by work.
• The Omega letter is the last letter of the Greek alphabet. The founders picked it in 1894 to mean the final word in watchmaking.
• The Patek Philippe mark is the Calatrava cross, the emblem of a Spanish knightly order founded in 1158.
• The Longines winged hourglass is the oldest trademark still in active use. It was registered in 1889.
• The Vacheron Constantin mark is a Maltese cross. It is the shape of a small gear that limited overwinding in old movements.
• Tudor is Rolex's sister brand. Both companies were run by the same founder, Hans Wilsdorf.
• Hublot is the French word for porthole. The H mark and the case shape both come from a ship's window.
• The Montblanc star is the mountain's snowcap seen from above. Its six points stand for the six glacier valleys of Mont Blanc.
• The Victorinox cross and shield comes from the Swiss Army knife. The company has made watches since 1989.
• The Corum key is a real key. The founders chose it in 1955 to mean the key to perfect time.