Did quartz ruin watches?

[East Bay Rider]

I remember being a kid and noticing that everyone around me took care of their watches. Watches were a valuable item and never mistreated. In my family circle, they were not necessarily an expensive item, but valuable to their owner just the same. Men would take off their watch to wash their hands. Better be careful, it's not waterproof.
If someone's watch broke he/she went on a shopping trip to buy a new one. And they were more careful with it next time. They went to a department store for a wind up Timex or a nicer department store that had a jewelry department for something "dressy". Watches weren't available at the drugstore back then. Folks had to try them on and compare them with other models, often asking other's opinions. Men didn't send their wife to the department store to pick up a new watch to knock around with.
I remember being a real little kid and having a toy watch because I was still too young for a real watch. Watches (even cheap ones) were not toys. When I got my first Timex, I remember watching the second hand turn and ACTUALLY seeing the minute hand move to the next mark on the face. I remember over winding a watch. I remember being warned not to over-wind my watch.
I think that today watches have lost the magic. Today's cheap quartz digital watches are easily replaceable and unimaginative. I suspect that for future generations who have no memories of any mechanical timepiece, Rolex and others will be coveted for the name and prestige and not for the machine inside.

[Incurable]

As a kid, my first 'good' watch was a Caravelle/Bulova given to me by my Grandmother. I still remember many nights listening to the mesmerizing 'ding-ding-ding' of its movement as I fell off to sleep with it next to my ear. It was a wonderful start to a life-long fascination with mechanical movements. Today's quartz watches, especially digital displays, just don't inspire such loyalty. I suppose the modern-day equivalent might be fond memories of the game the watch featured, spending many hours playing it instead of going to sleep. Some may say it's the same thing but, for me it's contrived and very, very different. There are timepieces and there are products. A quartz watch (cheap one) is very much the latter.

[TARDIS]

I kinda agree with you there Bill.

I live in a small city of around 90,000 pop.

There are modern shopping centers and malls and plenty of jewelry and watches shops. I would guess maybe a dozen. Four of them are 'high class' jeweler/watch shops. Not one of them is an authorized dealer for any big name Swiss mechanical watches. In this place, a high end watch is a Seiko quartz! Our state capital of course has the popular Swiss brands like Rolex, Omega & Breitling, but even there, there majority by far is the quartz brands.

Most male Australians own a quartz watch that is less than $200 and many have what I term a Seven Eleven watch which can be bought for as little as $50. When it stops, they just toss it and buy another.

It's the new generation of a throw away society in which Swiss mechanical watches occupy only a very small minority of the Aussie population, especially here where I live. Many guys at my club feel there's no way that they would pay thousands of dollars for a quality watch. It's just inconceivable to them. A vacation, a boat, a nice set of golf clubs, a solitaire for the wife or even a divorce settlement but a watch? NO WAY JOSE

In conclusion, I don't think that quartz has absolutely 'ruined' the mechanical watch....otherwise manufactures like Rolex and Omega would be making and selling less mechanical and phasing in more quartz models. I hope not though!

[abigsecret]

I believe only 1% of the population wordwide owns a watch that's more than $1000... (there's been some research that states this, but I can't find it right now, I might be off a little)
So that shows how small the amount of people is that is prepared to spend some money on a time-piece!
I don't think the quartz watches have anything to do with it necessarily, because if everybody wanted a mechanical watch, wouldn't the price automatically drop? I don't know, I'm not good at this stuff, but that's my thinking....

[padi56]

And yes in the 70s the quartz revolution almost destroyed the Swiss watch empire the first quartz watches were very very expensive.But as they got cheaper and mass produced the mechanical watch almost disappeared. And if it was not for companies like Rolex and a few others I am sure the mechanical watch would have disappeared.For me, the dividing line is really between hand-wound on the one side, and automatic and quartz on the other.

A hand wound movement "lives" because you actively want it to run . you sort of breathe life into it, and you have to do it on purpose. I think that's an entirely different attitude toward a watch than merely picking it up and find it working. And knowing that it will continue to do so without additional intervention by yourself.And IMHO makes you just part of the soul of the watch,and I like having to wind it each day,to keep its heart beating. Now that I cannot relate to a quartz watch but can remember having one of the first red LED quartz watches,then they was a big new gimmick.But today there is certainly more quartz watches bought that mechanical.And if it was not for brands like Seiko,and companies like ETA many people could not afford to own a mechanical watch.



When I pick up one of my hand-winds and wind it, the whole process, the act of winding, just seems to have a sense of history and tradition to it. This makes hand-winds special to me. I can imagine my grandfather, and his father, and his father's father performing the same daily ritual. It's a connection to the past horology speaking.


An automatic movement runs just because of gravity and the fact that you are not dead and still, and are moving alive and kicking to speak.Or as long as the electric winder doesn't stop or burn out. In that sense now especially on a winder, I find automatic movements sometimes as "soul-less" as quartz, when compared to a true hand-wound movement. One might argue that an automatic movement on a winder is not so much "alive" as permanently undergoing gentle resuscitation.I for one deplore the demise of the hand-wound movements. I like flat thin type watches, and hand-wound movements are inherently flatter thinner than automatics. But most watch cases today are built to accommodate the higher thicker automatic movements.

In this crazy horological world today there is room for Quartz and all the other deviations,of quartz mechanical high-breeds Manual,Automatic,or Quartz,for a divers watch, I will say both Quartz but mechanical, automatic only to preserve the crown water proofing, and so manual wind a no no IMHO for this type of watch now today.

[Downing]

The advent of the cheap quartz watch damn near killed mechanicals, but the latter has come roaring back with a vengance.

Just check out the abundance of watch magazines at your local, better, bookstores. It's astounding. And take a look at the magazines themselves. I carried home two of them yesterday, iWatch and Watch Time. It felt like ten pounds worth of mags. Granted, they're full of watch ads, but that's the point: There's big money in mechanical watches these days even with all the competition.

And most makers of high end mechancial watches are having trouble meeting demand. Locally, my AD carries several different makers, including Panerai, Patek Philippe, Breitling and Rolex, and it seems like the display cases are never more than half full. It's not uncommon for really special watches to never see the inside of the case they go out the door so fast.

Still, the days of mechanical watches being common are over. Now they are the exception rather than the rule. Kind of sad, true, but hey, at least they're around.

Padi, I hear what you're saying about hand wounds vs automatics, but I have to respectfully disagree. IMHO, automatics also have soul. It's a beatiful thing that my energy transfers so effortlessly to my watches. They live because I live. And it helps that I rather like my watches big and chunky.

Having said that, a top quality manual wind watch is high on my list of dream watches. I, too, want to participate in the daily ritual practiced by my ancestors of winding my watch.

It's all a matter of degree, I suppose, but to me an automatic watch is a living thing that merely hibernates if you keep it in a drawer too long.