The New Quartz Revolution in Watches
For watch nerds, any timepiece worth collecting is usually the mechanical kind. The watches so many aficionados have gravitated toward over the past decade and a half have been tough, utilitarian designs. Getting a thrill from a timepiece with a quartz movement wasn’t just unusual—it was laughable.
“When you’re a watch person and you’re making a thoughtful purchase, you might not understand the mechanical movement,” says James Lamdin, founder of the vintage- and pre-owned-watch marketplace Analog:Shift. “I would wager most people truly don’t. But you want to know that it’s there.”
There’s a romance about gears and springs that doesn’t translate to a watch that uses a battery to make a quartz crystal oscillate at 32,768 hertz, he explains. It’s akin to cheating. Even after the “quartz crisis” of the ’70s and ’80s sent shock waves through the industry by introducing a new class of inexpensive and easy-to-use watches, many makers and collectors remained analog.
Until recently, that is. The surge of interest around watches, along with the natural inclination for novelty, has inspired some would-be buyers to seek out new and different categories. Many of those intrepid fans have moved forward from the middle of the 20th century—the historical heyday for tool watches—to the ’70s and ’80s, when flashier styles were enjoying a moment.
Designs from Cartier, Bulgari, and Piaget—pieces that were “watches second, jewelry first,” as Lamdin puts it—have seen a sharp increase in popularity. Those watches were, in large part, driven by quartz movements. Thinner and less expensive than mechanical movements, they’re helpful for both price and design when you’re selling a slim dress watch made from a precious metal that’s already driving up the cost. Also, while the lore around mechanical watches is well-known these days, quartz was considered cutting-edge when many of these influential pieces debuted.
“They have, frankly, an entirely different set of rules when it comes to collectibility, desirability, and value than mainstream, collectible, mechanical watches,” Lamdin says.
Which is why even watch enthusiasts aren’t getting bent out of shape when they see a quartz-driven Cartier Panthère or Bulgari Tubogas hit the red carpet. Just look at the wrists of guys like Paul Mescal and Colman Domingo and you’ll see how these little gold watches have become a pop-culture fixture. But it’s not just celebrities. Everyday collectors are also buying up quartz-driven, design-forward watches in droves.
“Piaget is, to me, the single most important brand of the moment,” Lamdin says. Other jeweller-slash-watchmakers aren’t any less valid in terms of collectibility, he continues. “It’s more that Piaget encapsulated the ’70s and ’80s in a way that it’s just on the tip of everybody’s tongue.”
Funny enough, prices on Piaget’s flagship pieces like the Polo and the Warhol haven’t spiked—yet. They certainly aren’t cheap, since you’re usually still paying for a hefty chunk of gold. But compared with the nosebleed-inducing prices we saw for some steel watches just a few years ago, the market for high-fashion watches with quartz movements seems downright reasonable.
If you’re not into glitz, there are some impressive specimens that lean far more functional. Take Omega’s quartz-driven Seamaster released in conjunction with 1995’s GoldenEye. While Lamdin acknowledges that it’s at least a bit of “a nostalgia play,” it’s still a desirable piece. You can find similar quartz outliers from mechanically inclined makers like Rolex and TAG Heuer.
Does that mean you’ll soon see every certified Watch Guy embracing the ticktock of a quartz movement over the steady sweep of a mechanical second hand? Maybe not. But right now, if you want to show that you really know your stuff, having a little sliver of quartz inside your timepiece is a good way to do it.
You Might Also Like
