Quartz vs. Mechanical watches

In my "collection" I have an old Russian "Poljot" chronograph mechanical watch. It's lovely and I did wear it for a while but got fed up with the inaccuracy. I blamed that on the fact it was Russian and I picked it up from a street vendor in East Berlin. Only now do I realise that even the best Swiss mechanical watches are little better.

Michael.

 

IMHO In terms of engineering quartz watch is the breakthrough of the last 100 years of timepiece. I have 3 swiss mechanical watches and 1 quartz. There is really one that do what it is suppose to do. Since most have a mobile and it keep time too it does makes you wonder what is a wrist watch is really for. However, when I am out I feel naked without one on my wrist.

 

Michael,

Brittons watches do a good selection of new and used watches, I have purchased from them before and they are reliable dealers also Chronomaster.. I bought a nice Quartz Omega from him and it was xcellent..

Regards

JC

 

But Michael, since you are a travelling man, aren't you overlooking all those times that you reset your watch to local time?

 

Well, most of my travelling is between London and Lisbon which are in the same timezone. I travel to NY on average once a year these days so I don't have to change my watch very often.

Michael.

 

Here's some info on chronometer certificates:

http://www.europastar.com/europastar/watch_tech/chronog.jsp

There's no doubt that a quartz watch is more accurate than a mechanical watch - the accuracy is determined by the number of oscillations per unit time of the time base and the best mechanical watch at several thousand per minute can't match the millions of the vibration of a quartz crystal. However, there are other factors, such as mechanical ruggedness. I bought a Rolex GMT Master in Geneva in 1975 and I still wear it. I tend to be hard on watches, banging them into things and so on, but the Rolex has withstood it all and the design is timeless. I adjust it once a week (it varies by a few seconds over that time). This is accurate enough for me, and I never miss my trains.

Having said that, they now cost CHF5250 here (under CHF900 in 1975!) and if it broke, I don't think I'd get another.

People who buy mechanical watches generally do so for pride of ownership, whether it be sheer snobbery (I know some of those) or the appreciation of fine mechanics (I know some of those) - and some indeed are beautiful bits of craftsmanship.

Michael, have a look at the Wenger and Victorinox ranges (yes, the Swiss Army knife people are in the watch business). Victorinox has also a Swiss Army range. Some are pretty frightful looking, but some are also quite presentable, and some of the prices aren't bad.

 

OK my little watch story.
A few years ago whilst living in the middle east i soon realised that compared to UK prices certain makes of watch where available locally for very attractive prices, one of the best deals was on Raymond Weil, which where often much less than half UK retail, even the higher range Parsifal's. Me and my mate popped down town one day and bought one each of the same basic model, but slightly different coloured faces, straps , etc. The models in question where RW 'Tango' although they where the 100m models with screw down crowns, slightly better than the current Tango's available in UK at the moment. These watches had a retail price of about £600 on the UK high street, as mine was 'last years model' n-o-s i picked mine up for £150 in Saudi, fully certificated, warranty, genuine , etc.
My mate forgot to screw down the crown after adjusting his one day and duly went swimming, , the watch got flooded and trashed the module inside, obviouslty the case, etc was undamaged. Expecting a hefty bill he took it back to the dealers for repair. The new electronic module cost him SR140 which is about £30 !, this price wasn't subsidised either, it was the actual retail repair price for a new module. A £600 watch with a £30 timepeice inside, pretty shocking really and just goes to show how much you are paying for the case, strap and badge.

I ended up buying 5 Raymond Weils during my last week there as presents for the family. Rather than spend £25 to get a battery fitted in one of my wifes at a dealer in the UK, i got it done at a shoe repairers instead ( cheap bast@rd ) . after a few months the watch leaked, obviously not money well saved as the repair bill cost me £115 to get the watch sorted by RW back in Switzerland. It came back looking like new, and with a full technical report, the repair was also guaranteed for 2 years. It still hacks me off to think though that had i had the repair done in a far off hot sandy place it would have only cost me £30, although i only paid £200 for the watch and it reatailed over here £750, A point to ponder ....

One brand of Cheap digiatl watches that i've always liked is Casio, some of the wacky features they put on their watches are mad, altimeters, barometers, compasses, heart rate monitors, map distance measurers !, the list goes on. One the subject of radio controlled watches I quite like the new Casio ones, so much so that i'm getting one for crimbo,
so many watches , so few arms.. it's just not fair..

 

See now you could say that about turntables i.e. how CD is 'a better way to do it'!

I've got one of these (Breitling Wings Automatic) myself and, in practice, I find it loses/gains maybe a few seconds a week which is amazing for a mechanical watch:



Matt.

 

Mechanical v quartz

I have a stainless Omega automatic and a 9ct gold JLC.

Both watches are reasonably reliable, say 2 minutes a week but the big advantage is that they can be repaired and maintained for an indefinate period. Once a quartz watch conks out, it is the end of the road.

I bought my son a 1948 gold Rolex for his 21 st and had it thoroughly serviced. It is now good for another 30 years or so. My son is a typical 20 something in that he belongs to the throw away society, but this watch is the one thing that he really cherishes.

Mechanical watches are like oriental rugs, you buy them because of the hours of workmanship that went into them. You cannot put a value on that.

Regards

Mick

 

I've had an Omega Seamaster and a Breitling - both mechanical chronometers, both wonderful pieces of workmanship, but both fairly useless at the job of giving an accurate indication of the time of day... I've got one of the quartz Tissot T-touch watches now - accuracy is great I only ever adjust it when adjusting the date on a <31 day month; even then it's a matter of seconds. It's also got a compass, which is nice.

I'd recommend a quartz every day, unless you've got the spare cash lying around and want a nice dress watch as well.

 

I quite like the Swiss Army watches from Wenger and Victorinox but my only niggle with them is that they're not really watch makers and have just extended their brand to watches made by someone else. It's one thing I can't fathom about all the "designer" watches like Gucci, Armani etc. People are paying shedloads for those when they're just swatches (probably) with a designer label on them.

Michael.

 

Why should a quartz watch be any less repairable than a mechanical one?

Michael.

 

Not to mention that for the price of a quality mechanical you could buy enough Swatches to last you and your grandchildren the rest of their lives.

Michael.

 

i used to work with someone who collected swatches.
to be honest though with quartz watches you probably run into that insurance company favorite 'uneconomical to repair' if a new watch cost 50 quid and the repair cost 45 but you still had the same old scratched face and nicks in the wristband which would you go with?
cheers


julian

 

Sure, but I was just contesting Mick's idea that a mechanical watch is necessarily more robust or long lasting than a quartz one which simply isn't the case.

Michael.

 

Repairs

You can repair any bit of a mechanical watch.

Evidently, a quartz watch has to be replaced in its entirity and the problem is relating case / size of motor / position of wind up knob to case.

A jeweller friend of mine told me that 9 times out of ten, you have had it.

Regards

Mick

 

Well, I don't see why that should be the case. In fact, I have a quartz watch from Davis in France which I sent off to them to be repaired and they did so. Free of charge I might add.

As Julian said, the repair of a quartz watch might not always be economially worthwhile simply because of the low new cost of a replacement watch. However, that doesn't mean they can't be repaired.

Michael.

 

Quite simply, it shouldn't, except for the cost of repair exceeding the cost of replacement, as in the case of the cheaper quartz movements. However, how happy would the purchaser of a Patek Philippe Nautilus be if s/he had to replace the thing in its entirety? There is a quartz model in the Nautilus (diving watch) range, with a movement bought in by PP. Similarly, there was at one stage a Rolex Oysterquartz. Haven't seen any recently, so it may have gone, but I'd imagine Rolex customers being less than amused at being told that repair was not possible.

 

Michael - why not do what I did and get a halfway house? OK, so mine isn't the "real" Seiko Kinetic; I have a Lorus one (it's Seiko, but in an el cheapo case and brand). It's fully quartz, but has a mechanical recharging movement that charges up a small capacitor every time the watch is moved. My one has a glass window in the back of the watch so you can see this working, but a "normal" face. I'm not sure they make a skeleton version of the Kinetic, but if they do, I want one!



This is similar to mine, but mine has a lighter face and much slimmer hands (ie, doesn't look so "Micky mouse my first watch").

Mine keeps EXCELLENT time, and I've had it 3 years. It's been bashed a fair few times and still keeps going and looking good. Oh - and I got it from...

....Elizabeth Duke. I had to wade through the burberry caps to get to the counter, but the saving was worth it £60 for a watch that looks like a grand from a distance (according to a female mate - was dead chuffed with that comment!).

BTW - I prefer mechanical, but only in clocks. Time at home is less important. Just got a Kundo anniversary clock (the one with rotatiing balls for the pendulum) and am fettling it now. It loses about a minute a week at the mo but I reckon I can get that better.

 

Hi Sid,

Do you have any links you could post up about the Casio? I take it it's digital?

I've been searching for a digital radio controlled watch for years, but have never been able to find one. I remember once there was one in an Innovations catalogue a few years but it didn't even have an alarm, stop watch or any other basic features on it.

I can only think of 2 other brands which do radio controlled watches (suitable for use in the UK) and they are all analgoue faced. Much prefer digital readouts.

I've got a number of radio controlled clocks at home and love them. I've always found the quartz wrist watches I tend to have are accurate +/- 0.5 seconds a day, never come across anything more accurate than that.

Oh and on the subject of clocks on mobile phones, I'm guessing that time signals must be broadcast across mobile phone networks, so why don't we have mobile phones which sync up their clock with those time signals?