Ashes to ashes, quartz to quartz

Like many on here I imagine, before getting sucked down the WIS hole, all my watches had been quartz. That changed after a chance meeting with a friend who mentioned his new Explorer had ‘only’ cost two grand and, with time and money on my hands, common sense went out the window and the madness set in.

Twelve years later, my collection has now reverted completely back to quartz and comprises a GS HAQ, a Citizen HAQ, a Spring Drive and a radio-controlled G-Shock, two of which are solar-powered. All are spectacularly accurate, the Spring Drive being the black sheep, running at a mere +2spm. The sheer convenience of quartz, and the pleasure I get from the amazing accuracy of these high end movements means I struggle to see myself returning to mechanical any time soon, if ever.

For 99.9% of the population, quartz is surely the sensible choice. Has anyone else on here found they’ve gone full circle and left the insanity of the 0.1% behind them?

Nope!
I have a few quartz watches and I do appreciate the accuracy and simplicity of operation - the PRS-18Q COSC is a case in point.
But the ones I love and wouldn’t part with are all mechanical.

I perhaps haven’t been “into” watches long enough to go full circle, but I can’t ever see getting rid of my quartz watches. I currently have a fairly small 4 watch collection - 2 automatic, 2 quartz. One auto is more dressy and this year (with covid etc.) has been worn maybe twice all year.

The other auto I only got recently and love it (a longines hydroconquest) so it’s getting a lot of wear at the moment and has a power reserve long enough that it can easily fit into a rotation with my two quartz. I’m looking for one more and think I’ll go for a solar powered for even more ease.

Bottom line for me - I think my collection is always likely to have day to day quartz watches with one or two “special” / nicer autos.

Quartz is simply the no brainer choice for accuracy and reliability and it totally trashes mechanical watch in those two respects. However a good automatic watch is something that you can grow old with and something that you can almost have a love affair with. It's illogical but it is a powerful force.

I love my G- shock, no watch would have survived the last seven years of my working life!
But I appreciate an auto and a manual wind and see these as proper watches.
So I suppose I see a space in my collection for all types


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I started out with mechanical watches, my first Seiko quartz was amazingly accurate after my Timex automatic which lost 3 minutes a day. What is really amazing to me is modern mechanical watches which run within a couple of seconds a day.
I have room for both in my collection.

Well I have a mix between quartz and mechanical watches... so best of both worlds

No way.

Sort of. While I still love mechanical watches, I've worn my SBGN001 more than anything else this year...

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Originally Posted by jsong6688

Well I have a mix between quartz and mechanical watches... so best of both worlds

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Same. Certainly went through a phase where i thought I had left quartz behind and it would be mechanical from there on, but these days I appreciate both and largely thanks to CWC I have a few in my collection and love their convenience and robustness.

Have a few tuning forks as well.

For me, the attraction of the 'luxury' mechanical watches was the finishing and overall quality, rather than the movements themselves. If it weren't for the quality on offer from GS and Citizen (in their Chronomaster range) then I suspect I'd still have one or two mechanicals but, as it is, with these brands I feel I get the best of both worlds.

Happy to own both. Quartz is far more functional. Can't get the same feeling from a quartz though, it's not logical but I get joy watching a mechanical watch spring to life.

I really like quartz watches, and own nearly 20 - from a 1978 Seiko given to me as a Christmas present by my parents, to some very recent solar-powered, atomic-clock regulated examples by which I set the whole collection.

I like their fuss-free nature, and I like things like not worrying that hand-winding them will strip the teeth from the crown wheel for example, or that my automatic winders will cause shortened servicing intervals, etc. etc.

I love mechanicals, too, they have a magic of their own, but I love wristwatches in general more, and have no truck with pointless snobberies.

After 20 odd years wearing a mechanical watch (usually one specific watch tbh), I’ve recently drifted back and forth between mechanical and quartz. I totally agree with the ‘soul’ that quartz might be missing but I’ve found it can be more than made up for by convenience, at times.

I’m currently scouring the sales for something with a HAQ movement at a decent price. A Longines Conquest is very appealing.


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I'd love to have a HAQ in the collection again. But are there any decently priced models available at around 36mm today? I figure you have to go to older Grand Seikos, even older Hamiltons or vintage?

By the way I had the 36mm Aqua Terra in quartz. Loved the look but sold it as the accuracy was hardly high. I'd pick it up after a couple of weeks and it'd be 30 seconds off. I know, shouldn't be a big deal, but the appeal of quartz for me is that this needn't be the case.

I have a fair number of quartz watches including a couple of HAQ, but I rarely pick one out to wear.

Part of the appeal of a mechanical watch to me is picking it up and setting it and starting it up.

Knowing my quartz watches are running and keeping time somehow lessens the appeal of giving one a run.

M

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Originally Posted by SplitSecond

... are there any decently priced models available at around 36mm today? ...

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Longines Conquest VHP 36mm?

https://www.longines.com/media/catal...-2000x2000.png

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Originally Posted by earlofsodbury

Longines Conquest VHP 36mm?

https://www.longines.com/media/catal...-2000x2000.png

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Thanks for that. If it comes out with a grey or black dial, I'll be considering it.

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Originally Posted by SplitSecond

Thanks for that. If it comes out with a grey or black dial, I'll be considering it.

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Not sure what your definition of 'decently priced' is but the GS SBGX range is 37mm and can be picked up new on Chrono24 for GBP1,600. Laughably cheap for the quality you're getting.

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Originally Posted by ColDaspin

Not sure what your definition of 'decently priced' is but the GS SBGX range is 37mm and can be picked up new on Chrono24 for GBP1,600. Laughably cheap for the quality you're getting.

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Indeed. The older SBGX 0** series with the Seiko branding turn up on SC now and again for a grand or so. I managed to get a near mint box and papers 061 from 2014 for less than £1k.

I’ve scaled back to only one watch - and if it’s only one, it has to be hand-wound for me. The hand winding each morning gives me a sense of engagement with the object that visual interaction alone can’t provide.

I have both quartz and mechanical. I like the accuracy of the quartz but really have no need for it. To be honest if I know the time within a couple of minutes either way it's all I need, although my mechanical watches are all much more accurate than that.

I have both and an appreciation for both although labelling non-quartz lovers as the 0.1% insane is a bit daft.

It would be natural to find automatic or hand wind watches more 'interesting'.

I like and own both and find joy in all sorts of watches.

For 99.9%, quartz (or no watch at all) is a perfectly sensible choice, but if your interest in watch goes beyond having something that tells the time on your wrist, I agree, a mechanical watch is going to win most of the time.

M

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Originally Posted by ColDaspin

For me, the attraction of the 'luxury' mechanical watches was the finishing and overall quality, rather than the movements themselves. If it weren't for the quality on offer from GS and Citizen (in their Chronomaster range) then I suspect I'd still have one or two mechanicals but, as it is, with these brands I feel I get the best of both worlds.

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Well Put.

There seems little interest in Citizen's Chronomaster range here. Something to do with an absence of brand recognition and peer approval I suspect.

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Originally Posted by Mick P

Quartz is simply the no brainer choice for accuracy and reliability and it totally trashes mechanical watch in those two respects. However a good automatic watch is something that you can grow old with and something that you can almost have a love affair with. It's illogical but it is a powerful force.

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I understand your sentiment but I also think that the soul and character which we talk of is felt by the wearer therefore not limited to mechanical watches only. I was given a CWC Diver (quartz) by my wife for our wedding anniversary and I have worn it almost everyday for work ever since. It is battered, scraped and scratched and been sent for repair over the years. I could tell you exactly how it got its battle scars, which seas its swam in and which mountain ranges its climbed over. I sometimes get comfort from watching the second hand tick around the dial, knowing exactly which markers it will hit and which it will miss. I feel it has just as much character and warmth as any mechanical I've owned. I guess what I'm saying is that a watch doesn't have to be mechanical for the wearer to feel an attachment to it. The movement doesn't matter if you love a watch and build a relationship with it over the years.

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I’m wearing a quartz CWC Diver at the moment. Lovely design. I recognise the romantic appeal of a good mechanical design, but quartz is an equally great example of human technical ingenuity. Both are equally fine in my book. The GS spring-drive, with its ability to run with no battery, is probably the best of both worlds.

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Originally Posted by forpetesake

Well Put.

There seems little interest in Citizen's Chronomaster range here. Something to do with an absence of brand recognition and peer approval I suspect.

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I think the 'problem' with the Chronomasters (not that I suspect Citizen sees it that way) is twofold: firstly, as with GS quartz up until the last 2-3 years, the range of designs is very limited (effectively, there are 2!) as well as being pretty conservative and, secondly, Citizen seem to have no interest in selling them to the non-JDM market, which means we gaijin are obliged to buy sight unseen, something that, understandably, few are prepared to do on watches costing two grand plus.

I've hand wind, automatic with hand wind, HAQ, Spring Drive, solar analogue and digital quartz, battery analogue quartz and automatic only... I think covers pretty much all the bases though it was never my aim to do so.

I'm not sure i could go quartz only however part of that is because there are so many well designed and attractive (to me) watches out there that just happen to be mechanical. There's also something about such a device being so relatively accurate, the tickticktick, the design and the craftsmanship of a mechanical that appeals as well as knowing that that's how all timekeeping devices started off.

Electricity and batteries came along further down the timeline of man's discovery and invention however not all advances lead to greater pleasure in the experience of ownership - book vs Kindle may be an appropriate analogy.

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Originally Posted by Bobbyf

I understand your sentiment but I also think that the soul and character which we talk of is felt by the wearer therefore not limited to mechanical watches only. I was given a CWC Diver (quartz) by my wife for our wedding anniversary... The movement doesn't matter if you love a watch and build a relationship with it over the years.

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I do agree with this sentiment (which seems to be at odds with my previous posts!) as I have a Citzen quartz diver that I use for actual diving in the UK.

I bought it to have a watch I wouldn't mind losing on a dive, at a stretch, but the one time I did think I had lost it, I was far more upset than if I'd lost many of my more valuable watches as, by that time, it had been with me on so many dives that it had developed a sentimental importance to me.

Luckily, I had just mislaid it temporarily and it's joined me for many more dives since.

M