How Mechanical Watches Survived the Quartz Crisis

On December 25, 1969, Seiko put the Quartz Astron 35SQ on sale in Japan. It was the first quartz wristwatch anyone could buy. A quartz crystal, kept vibrating by a small battery and circuit, keeps time far more steadily than a balance wheel, so even an early quartz watch beat a fine mechanical chronometer on accuracy.

The Astron itself was expensive. What changed the industry was what came after it, as electronics got cheaper through the 1970s and quartz movements could be made in huge numbers by machines. A watch that kept better time than a Swiss mechanical piece could suddenly be sold for a fraction of the price.

Very badly. According to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, employment in Swiss watchmaking fell from around 90,000 people in 1970 to just over 30,000 in 1984, a loss of roughly two thirds. The federation is careful to say quartz wasn't the only cause; economic crises and a strong Swiss franc played a part. But the technology shift landed on an industry built around hand-assembled mechanical movements, and many old names closed or were sold.

The damage reached the movement makers and the small suppliers behind them as much as the famous brands. Skills that took years to learn went with the jobs, which is part of why vintage parts and the watchmakers who can work with them are scarce now.

Yes, and that's the part people forget. In 1983 two struggling groups, ASUAG and SSIH, merged under a restructuring led by Nicolas G. Hayek, and the same year Swatch went on sale. It was a cheap, Swiss-made quartz watch built from 51 components with automated assembly, sold as a fashion accessory you might own several of.

Swatch brought volume and cash back to Swiss watchmaking. The merged group took the SMH name in 1985 and became the Swatch Group in 1998. That money and industrial base helped keep Swiss movement manufacturing alive while the mechanical side found its footing.

By giving up on the argument they couldn't win. Jacques Piguet bought the Blancpain name in 1982, and Jean-Claude Biver joined him in 1983 to relaunch it as a brand that made only traditional mechanical watches. The pitch was craft, heritage and the hand finishing no quartz watch had, rather than accuracy.

That idea spread through the 1980s and 1990s. In Germany, Walter Lange re-registered A. Lange & Söhne on December 7, 1990, and on October 24, 1994 he and Günter Blümlein presented the first collection of the revived company at the Dresden Royal Palace, including the Lange 1. A mechanical watch had become something you bought because of how it was made.

Seiko, the company that started it all, kept making mechanical watches too, and its Grand Seiko line is one of the strongest arguments that a brand can lead in quartz and still build serious mechanical pieces.

Yes, and the gap hasn't closed. To pass the Swiss COSC chronometer test, a mechanical movement has to stay within an average of minus 4 to plus 6 seconds a day across several days of testing in different positions and temperatures. A basic quartz watch typically drifts by something like 15 seconds a month, which a mechanical watch can lose or gain in two or three days.

Mechanical brands have spent the decades since the crisis narrowing that gap anyway. Silicon hairsprings, better alloys and stricter in-house standards mean a well-made modern automatic often runs within a few seconds a day. That precision only lasts while the oils are fresh, though, so a watch that has gone years past its service interval will usually show it on a timing machine before it shows it on your wrist.

So the comparison misses the point. Owners don't wear a mechanical watch to be the most accurate person in the room; they wear it because it runs on a spring and a balance wheel that someone assembled by hand, and because with care it can outlast them.

The comeback changed what a mechanical watch is for. Nobody needs one to tell the time, so people buy them to keep for decades, and that only works if the movement gets looked after. A mechanical watch needs a full service every several years, with the movement taken apart, cleaned, lubricated and regulated, while a quartz watch mostly needs a battery and a seal check.

It also explains why good independent watchmakers matter. The industry that shrank in the 1970s and 1980s trained far fewer people, and some brands now restrict who can buy their spare parts. When you choose a watchmaker, ask what brands they hold parts accounts for and how they handle older movements, because that tells you whether they can actually keep your watch running.