Though once poo-pooed, watch collectors are waking up to quartz. It’s increasingly appreciated for all the reasons that made the technology successful in the first place: accuracy, robustness and cost. But it also holds a special place in the history of watches and timekeeping itself.
The history of quartz timekeeping goes back to clocks using the tech back in the early 20th century. The first quartz wristwatch (see below) came in 1969, but the “quartz era” when it dominated the watch industry took off in the 1970s and went right through the ’80s. It was an odd time in watches.
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Though initially expensive, quartz quickly made watches cheap and easy to mass-produce. New models were turned out quickly and often even viewed as disposable, few having the chance to become the kind of watch future collectors would look to as iconic. Traditional watchmakers went out of business in droves and often look back on the era as “The Quartz Crisis.” For a time, the word quartz was simply equated with “cheap,” low-quality and “not a ‘real’ watch” by those who fancy themselves aficionados. But that’s changed in recent years.
Those once-reviled quartz decades now hold nostalgia and watch collectors have come to acknowledge some of quartz’s genuinely superior qualities. As long as they’ve also got their column-wheel chronographs and haute horlogerie, they can also appreciate quartz watches as something fun, affordable and casual as well as holding an incontrovertibly important place and influence in watch history and design.
There are many quartz watches that are well-known and have had a cultural impact — more than we can enumerate here. Rather, we want to zero in on those quartz watches that are true milestones. Let us know more great, noteworthy or iconic quartz watches, or just those you love, in the comments.
