QUARTZ AND PROUD OF IT

Enthusiasts for ‘real’ watches shouldn’t look down on the oscillating crystal

IF WATCH PEOPLE were rational, we’d all wear quartz. Instead, most consider them the horological equivalent of the Hyundai i20: functional but unloved and slightly less interesting than porridge. Yet that old quartz watch in your sock drawer is well worth hauling out, popping a battery in and resurrecting. Here’s why.

Everyone knows quartz watches are usually more accurate than mechanicals. That’s because (as postulated by John Harrison, 18th Century British marine chronometer pioneer) the faster and more stable the balance wheel’s oscillations, the more precise the watch. Zenith’s El Primero movement, with one of the fastest-beating balances, runs at 5Hz. To put that in context, most mechanical watches, even the expensive ones, tick away at just 3 or 4Hz.

Rolex, which briefly flirted with quartz and now makes only mechanical watches, claims accuracy of -1 to +5 seconds a day for its 4Hz ‘cal.3255’ movement, even sharper than the Swiss chronometer standard. That, for a tiny, spring-powered machine that gets bashed about on your wrist, is impressive enough. But contrast that with the Seiko 9F quartz movement in the watch on the right, which beats at 32,768Hz. It, too, is accurate to five seconds – per year.

At its heart, in a tiny capsule immune from positional error, temperature and shock, is a tiny, tuning-fork-shaped quartz crystal. The constant power from a battery makes it oscillate rapidly, with absolutely stability, and it’s this that gives the watch its accuracy. Even a £5 quartz from the local market will be running at the same 32,768Hz, albeit at plus or minus ten seconds a month. Quartz has, quite simply, democratised accurate timekeeping.

Quartz watches don’t need the same sort of babying that some mechs demand. There’s no need to keep them on a watch-winder (as some watch buffs do); they’re always ready to go. Then there’s servicing. Your mech will need a trip to the workshop for an oil change around every five years, because the lubricant in the mechanism slowly evaporates, but not before it attracts dust, solidifies and drags the cogs. With servicing for some mech watches costing over £500, getting the battery changed every couple of years in your quartz doesn’t seem so bad.

Of course, the whole watch thing isn’t rational and there’s no reason you can’t love both quartz and mechanical. But, really, isn’t it time to stop being quite so sniffy about quartz?