Quartz watches are a polarising force in watch collecting. Some avoid them like the plague, preferring exclusively mechanical pieces. If you ask us, they’re missing out—and a huge swath of the population would seem to agree.
Because for most folks, quartz watches are a daily, accessible reality offering functional designs at great prices. Surprisingly, the technology is almost 100 years old. In 1927, the first quartz clock was developed in America by Bell Telephone Laboratories based on the simple science that when an electrical current is passed through a quartz crystal, it vibrates at a precise rate. But in watchmaking, it took over 40 years for the technology to be miniaturised enough to fit on your wrist.
What became known as the “the quartz revolution” began with Seiko in 1969 and almost finished off the mechanical watch industry altogether. Fortunately, it didn’t. In the midst of the upheaval of the '80s and '90s, even the most illustrious watch makers dabbled with quartz—until, that is, mechanical movements gave them a lifeline and a valuable point of difference.
Today, quartz watches are the most affordable way to get into watches. Meanwhile, the quartz industry has developed batteries that last much longer—plus watches that incorporate other power sources like via hybrid kinetic drives or solar. Here, Dialed In dives into some of the most interesting quartz-driven watches on the market right now, including Timex, Swatch x Omega’s viral Moonswatch, Citizen, Longines and even a highly sought-after vintage gold Rolex from the mid-1980s.
Nick Sullivan is Creative Director at Esquire, where he served as Fashion Director from 2004 until 2019. Prior to that, he relocated from London with his young family to Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. He has styled and art directed countless fashion and cover stories for both Esquire and Big Black Book (which he helped found in 2006) in exotic,uncomfortable, and occasionally unfeasibly cold locations. He also writes extensively about men’s style, accessories, and watches. He describes his style as elegantly disheveled.
