Watchlords

It is very easy to take the view that the quartz revolution represented some sort of cataclysm for traditional watchmaking. I have cast a contemptuous eye myself over mid 1970’s watch catalogues filled to bursting with seemingly uninspiring vanilla quartz output, smarting at the relegation of proper watches to the obscurity of the back pages. However, the view we tend to take of quartz technology is shaped by our modern-day perspective of the quartz movement as a disposable plastic consumable, produced by robots for pennies and that watches powered by them are therefore somehow contemptible.

That viewpoint neglects, of course, the reality of the engineering achievement of those pioneering quartz technology watchmakers of the late 1960’s and early ‘70’s. There was a very good reason why early quartz watches were priced at a very considerable premium over the established mechanical wristwatch, and it wasn’t simply opportunistic marketing of white heat technological trinketry to consumers thirsty ways to spend their disposable income.

https://adventuresinamateurwatchfettlin ... artz-0853/