Luxury Watches and Jewelry Watches and not just. From the finest timepieces to the most exquisite in jewelry, what's new, what's hot and what's not. Feel free to pose questions, offer insight or ask for advice.
Traditional watchmaking is a craft that has continued for hundreds of years. Originally all movements were manually wound and had to be wound daily to stay on time. There was also the problem of over winding the watch. After some time watchmakers developed the automatic winding movement to eliminate the need for daily winding and also all but eliminate the accidental over winding of the watch. This kind of workmanship is mostly done by hand. The fitting together of all the gears and pinions to track time is labor intensive. If you also factor in the time to manufacture these tiny parts which can be done partly by machine and partly by hand (greatly magnified) you add to the intensity. Traditional watch making is an art that fewer and fewer are learning as a trade.
Quartz watches became widely popular in the early 1970’s. They are extremely accurate and should be. With a circuit board and a battery precision is practically guaranteed. Some of the most difficult complications in a mechanical watch were recreated in analog and digital/analog formats for a fraction of the cost. For quite some time many of the big traditional watch making companies jumped on the quartz band wagon. But as the novelty of quartz watches wore off, the desire for something really special in a timepiece returned.
As my previous entry recognized, watches are traditionally given to mark special milestones in life. Many people want to mark these events with traditional mechanical watches. Don’t get me wrong. There are many beautiful quartz watches available still. It is a matter of personal preference and what you are looking for in a watch.
