At its most simple level a watch is all about telling time. Of course none of us buy a watch solely for that purpose, there is so much more to it, and if you are reading this then you probably have that tingling feeling that the prospect of strapping a new fine watch on creates. However, regardless of why we decide that we wish to acquire a watch, the one thing that it has to be able to do is to accurately tell the time, so the movement – the part of the watch that operates the watch and controls the timekeeping needs to be up to the job.
Historically watch movements were miniature machines – a series of gears held together between plates and powered by a spring. That all changed in the 1970s with the availability of cheap battery powered, or quartz, watches that could tell the time much more accurately than a mechanical watch and cost a fraction of the price. These quartz watches almost killed the Swiss watch industry and a number of companies failed or merged during the mid to late 1970s. Some Swiss companies tried to move to quartz production (at one point Zenith committed to 100% quartz watches and ordered all of the machinery, designs, templates, etc of its iconic El Primero movement destroyed – but that’s another story), but with the noted exception of a new brand, Swatch, they were largely unsuccessful.
And then a funny thing happened.
In the 1980s there was something that is now referred to as the mechanical renaissance – a backlash against quartz watches that led people to reject the cheap quartz watch as ‘soulless’ and seek out the mechanical marvels that their fathers and grandfathers wore on their wrists or carried in their pockets.
Ever since quartz and mechanical watches have existed in an uneasy alliance next to one another, and as a customer you need to decide which type of movement you prefer. Let’s look at each in a little more detail.
Mechanical
Mechanical watches can be split into two broad categories – manual and automatic. The only practical difference between the two types is that an automatic watch can be wound just by wearing it – the movement of your wrist is translated into the power to run the watch. If you wear the watch every day, or if you use a watch winder, then you need never worry about it stopping. A manual watch doesn’t have the ability to wind itself based on your movements and requires you to wind it manually every day or two by turning the crown.
In both cases, the watch is powered by a mainspring (sometimes multiple springs) which stores energy and then slowly releases that energy to power the watch. Depending on the watch, the spring will have enough energy to power the watch for anything from about 36 hours to around 10 days (there are a few that can run for as long as a month, but they are very rare – and expensive). Winding the watch restores this power reserve to ensure that the watch never stops.
A mechanical watch also uses another, much finer, spring called a hairspring or balance spring. This spring is part of a complex mechanism called the escapement, and the escapement’s job is to control the rate of the watch – its accuracy. Mechanical watches generally operate between 3 and 5 hertz – 3 to 5 cycles per second and the hairspring helps to control the timing of those cycles to ensure that there are exactly the right number of cycles for accurate timekeeping. Most mechanical watches move the second hand once per cycle which leads to the apparently smooth sweeping motion that is often associated with mechanical watches.
The escapement can be adjusted by a trained watchmaker during the process of regulation to adjust a watch’s accuracy. However, mechanical watches can be affected by a number of different factors – movement, temperature, position, the amount of power reserve in the mainspring, etc, etc. As a result a well regulated mechanical watch may still gain or lose a few seconds a day – the Swiss body that certifies watches as chronometers (especially accurate watches) requires a mechanical watch to consistently maintain accuracy of between -4 and +6 seconds per day.
Although there has been significant advancement in the materials used in mechanical watches to reduce friction, improve accuracy, etc, there is still a need for servicing these pieces – replacing worn out parts, cleaning the watch, replacing the oil in high friction areas, etc. The interval between services will vary, but 5 years is a reasonable average. However, because a mechanical watch is fundamentally unchanged in basic operation in the last 150 years, these pieces are relatively easy to maintain for a very long time. There is absolutely no reason why a mechanical watch that you buy today can’t be on the wrist of your great, great, great grandson on his wedding day (and feel free to add more greats).
Parts are readily available from the manufacturer and even if the manufacturer goes out of business at some point in the future, equivalent parts are identifiable and can be sourced from parts houses. In the worst case scenario, because we are talking about purely mechanical machines, parts can be fabricated by skilled watchmakers – that’s how so many vintage pocket watches are still running today.
Quartz
Quartz watches may be digital (a screen showing numbers), analogue (traditional dial with hands) or both, it is simply the movement that makes the watch a quartz watch. As with mechanical watches, there are two major categories of quartz movement – simple and thermo-compensated. I’ll get into the way that these work later on, but the idea of a thermo-compensated movement is to adjust for variations that may make the watch less accurate. There are other technologies that can achieve this, but thermo-compensated dominates the market.
A quartz watch never needs to be wound, as long as the battery has some energy left in it the watch will run constantly unless stopped by the owner (usually by pulling out the crown). The battery in a quartz watch replaces the mainspring and generally provides enough power for anything from 12 months to 7 or 8 years.
The hairspring from a mechanical watch is replaced by a quartz crystal (hence the name) and the vibrations of that crystal when an electric current is passed across it is what controls the accuracy of the watch. Quartz crystals generally vibrate at 32,768 hertz – 32,768 cycles per second, considerably faster than the 3 – 5 cycles in a mechanical watch. The circuit board in the watch will translate these vibrations into the time by changing the digital display or advancing the seconds hand once every 32,768 vibrations – once per second which results in the noticeable ‘tick’ that is generally associated with quartz watches (though can occur on some mechanical pieces).
As a result of this vastly faster speed, a quartz watch is usually much more accurate than a mechanical watch – only a few seconds error per month. However, a quartz watch cannot be regulated – the accuracy is fixed.
Thermo-compensated movements attempt to overcome the one inherent weakness in a quartz movement. The speed that the quartz crystal vibrates at varies with temperature – slower when it’s cold, faster when it’s hot. Thermo-compensated movements measure the average temperature over a period of time and adjust the rate to overcome this temperature error – a computer controlled constant regulation if you like. Thermo-compensated watches can be accurate to just a few seconds per year.
Quartz watches still require servicing. Obviously they need the battery changed, but they will also require cleaning, replacing of seals, etc on a similar maintenance schedule as mechanical watches (approximately every 5 years). If they are analogue then they will also need oiling of high friction areas.
Quartz watches are harder to repair – those early quartz watches of the 1970s are now obsolete, if the movement fails the only option is to try and find another watch that used the same movement and do a swap, new versions are simply not being produced. Of course the problem with that approach is that the replacement movement is just as old as the one that failed and it may not last much longer itself.
The quartz movements used today are more stable, and many manufacturers make a commitment to servicing quartz movements down the road – Breitling for example, who use a number of thermo-compensated movements, have committed to supporting movements for at least 20 years after they stop using them in new models. However, the purchaser of a quartz watch needs to be aware that at some point their watch will become obsolete – the movements are effectively mini computers and cannot be repaired in the same way that a mechanical movement can be.
So which is better?
Better is such a subjective term – do you want a watch that lasts for 100 years, then buy a mechanical watch. Do you want a watch that is always accurate and never needs to be wound, then buy a quartz watch.
For many collectors mechanical is the only choice – they see a mechanical watch as a living thing, and relish the opportunity to wind it as a way to interact with the piece. They take comfort in the fact that there are wheels and springs whirring away in miniature on their wrist, and of course mechanical watches present the wonderful opportunity to showcase the movement through a display back or skeletonised dial. Some manufacturers pride themselves on producing only mechanical pieces, and virtually every super high end watch is mechanical.
On the other hand, the quartz watch has a number of significant practical advantages in the real world – it requires less interaction and can be strapped on without any concerns for whether it needs adjusting, winding, etc. In no way is quartz the poor relation of the industry, most of the biggest names in the business produce at least one or two quartz models in their range.
Only you can decide if you prefer one over the other, and for some buyers it’s irrelevant in their decision. Hopefully you are at least more familiar with the pros and cons of each type of movement.
Written by:Â Andy Jordan - Watch Enthusiast.