Swiss/eta Quartz

[Devedander]

I keep seeing watches with Swiss or ETA quarts movements... is there something better about Swiss Quartz than Japanese Quartz?

[fitmic]

Good question.

I always wanted to know this as well.

To me Japan is the same as great electronics, and quartz is electronic right?!

[TJGladeRaider]

I keep seeing watches with Swiss or ETA quarts movements... is there something better about Swiss Quartz than Japanese Quartz?

The Japanese invented the Quartz watch - Seiko introduced it in the 1970's.

I wonder how they feel seeing advertisements that make the Swiss sound superior.

Bill

[xelorrolex]

:knight: Da Vinci Code ... to be decoded

- Japanese quartz means ..... chinese :cc_chinese:

- Swiss quartz means ..... japanese

MERRY CHRISTMAS to ALL !!!

Xel

Edited December 22, 2006 by xelorrolex

[crystalcranium]

Who makes a better cracker, Keebler or Nabisco?

The technology to make a quartz watch is so simple, I think there's probably nothing to choose between the two.

Seiko invented the quartz watch??? I thought Accutron/Bulova did. Were the Hamilton Electrics in the late 1950's quartz?

[jonthebhoy]

http://invention.smithsonian.org/centerpie...tors/index.html

[cornerstone]

Seiko take quartz more seriously than any other watch manufacturer - I'd be surprised if their high end models were topped by their Swiss counterparts.

[TJGladeRaider]

http://invention.smithsonian.org/centerpie...tors/index.html

It's funny how history gets recorded.

I have always been interested in watches, and I distinctly remember the first quartz watches being made available by Seiko. They can say whatever they want, but if you owned a quartz watch when they first became available, it was most definitely a Seiko, no matter what anyone had on the drawing board.

I also remember the first digital watch very distinctly - it was an ugly pig by Seiko marketed under their Pulsar subsidiary followed by an LCD version marketed as a Seiko. I first saw it advertised in a magazine on an airplane and it was incredibly expensive -- but I cannot recall how much.

As for Bulova, all I remember them for was something aboutusing a tuning fork in a watch.

Memory is amazing. I remember all that stuff so clear I'd bet serious money, but sometimes I can't remember what I did yesterday.

LOL

Bill

[crystalcranium]

http://invention.smithsonian.org/centerpie...tors/index.html

Thanks JTB. And it turns out the Hamilton Electrics of the late '50's and 60's were battery powered mechanical watches, the first hybrids!. Simply facinating what one learns here.

[crystalcranium]

It's funny how history gets recorded.

I have always been interested in watches, and I distinctly remember the first quartz watches being made available by Seiko. They can say whatever they want, but if you owned a quartz watch when they first became available, it was most definitely a Seiko, no matter what anyone had on the drawing board.

I also remember the first digital watch very distinctly - it was an ugly pig by Seiko marketed under their Pulsar subsidiary followed by an LCD version marketed as a Seiko. I first saw it advertised in a magazine on an airplane and it was incredibly expensive -- but I cannot recall how much.

As for Bulova, all I remember them for was something aboutusing a tuning fork in a watch.

Memory is amazing. I remember all that stuff so clear I'd bet serious money, but sometimes I can't remember what I did yesterday.

LOL

Bill

I've got a bud who has one of the first Seiko digitals that had a screw off hatch for a massive battery that fit into the case back. He paid $900 USD for it in Japan in 1970.

He pulled it out of the back of a drawer and let me see it once. In pretty good shape and heavy as lead. I told him an ebay auction might be in order!!!

...and the Accutron vibrating tuning fork was a bridge between a fully mechanical balance wheel and spring and the vibrating crystal in a quartz watch. It was an actual vibrating tuning fork connected by gears to the mechanicals of a watch drive train. Wow! Some incredible "halfway there" inventions in the late 50s and 60s

[olivia]

"I also remember the first digital watch very distinctly - it was an ugly pig by Seiko marketed under their Pulsar subsidiary followed by an LCD version marketed as a Seiko."

Actually, Pulsar digital started out as a Hamilton Company, then later bought by Seiko.

[Devedander]

And so I think the answer to my question is any kind of quartz is going to keep time to a rediculous high accuracy right?

[longshot]

for a (very) short time i owned an omega smp full size in quartz. i had a watchmaker friend open the caseback and the eta quartz movement was a tiny plastic thing not much bigger than the battery sitting in a huge plastic spacer ring that took up 80% or more of the case volume

seiko on the other hand not only introduced the first quartz watch and the first quartz 1/100th second chronograph (a 15 jewel beauty used in the RAF seikos) but the first quartz specifically designed with a higher torque motor to move larger heavier hands with more lume and with a 5 year battery life so that it would not have to be opened as often and re-sealed

i have two variants of this full size 7 jewel all metal movement. a 7549 in the 600m professional (the first production titanium dive watch and first quartz professional dive watch) and a 7548 in a franken i had built in a 6309 divers case.

[crystalcranium]

for a (very) short time i owned an omega smp full size in quartz. i had a watchmaker friend open the caseback and the eta quartz movement was a tiny plastic thing not much bigger than the battery sitting in a huge plastic spacer ring that took up 80% or more of the case volume

seiko on the other hand not only introduced the first quartz watch and the first quartz 1/100th second chronograph (a 15 jewel beauty used in the RAF seikos) but the first quartz specifically designed with a higher torque motor to move larger heavier hands with more lume and with a 5 year battery life so that it would not have to be opened as often and re-sealed

i have two variants of this full size 7 jewel all metal movement. a 7549 in the 600m professional (the first production titanium dive watch and first quartz professional dive watch) and a 7548 in a franken i had built in a 6309 divers case.

Seiko is an amazing watchmaking company. They have to be considered one of the most influential horology houses in the history of timekeeping. In house mechanical movements, innovative creations, the bringing of high quality watches to the masses....this company has done it all.

My Seiko automatics are my most reliable watches. I can pick one up after years of non use and it will run accurately and strong.