Quartz or automatic?

bmtannam

Would you advise me regardind the buying of a 2, 000 euro Tag Heuer or Breitling that has a quartz movement?
Would you shell out that kind of money for a non automatic watch?
Advice and personal preferences welcome.

893bet

Brand new tag, No. The depreciation would be too much, slightly less on a breitling I would say.

I prefer automatics personally though miss having a nice Quartz.

Eoin

Would you shell out that kind of money for a non automatic watch?

Entirely depends on the model. I'd get a second hand Breitling B-1 for example. If it was between a new quartz or 2nd hand automatic version of the same model, I wouldn't.

art

Well I would cause I have ...!

There's an overhead to a quartz in that you have to replace its battery, costing likely about 20 to 30 euros, every five years.

There's an overhead to automatics in that you have to service them every five years (roughly), costing 120 to 240 euros (dearest if a chrono, for example). Plus you can't pick them up after five days and read the time (if they're not on a watch winder, that's plugged in, using electricity).

There's cleverness to both designs in their own way, arguably more so for a quartz, but a longer heritage to automatics which can appeal to a sense of history and timelessness...

What, generally, appeals to you?

Wibbs

Art nails it TBH.

893bet

art wrote: »

There's an overhead to automatics in that you have to service them every five years (roughly), costing 120 to 240 euros

Just got a quote on my PO from omega...........495 euro for full service.....

fmul9798

893bet wrote: »

Just got a quote on my PO from omega...........495 euro for full service.....

Is that the current price for a cal 2500? Do they include refinishing of the case and bracelet in that?

Deep Thought

893bet wrote: »

Just got a quote on my PO from omega...........495 euro for full service.....

Thats was quick...thought it would take donkeys..

893bet

Deep Thought wrote: »

Thats was quick...thought it would take donkeys..

Quote was fast! However.....: Up to 8 weeks to get watch back after service!

893bet

fmul9798 wrote: »

Is that the current price for a cal 2500? Do they include refinishing of the case and bracelet in that?

I am unsure. There are rrps for service but they give individual quotes. I suspect the 495 is the rrp and it only goes up if further work is needed!

Polish etc included but I think I am going to opt out of any polishing to the head as it is 98% as it is.

StealthRolex

If you are getting quartz get something that runs a ten year battery. Having to change the battery every 2 or 3 years necessitates have the case fully sealed and tested for water resistance as well. On this class of watch this adds to the expense. Also it is guaranteed downtime.

While mechanicals \ automatics should be serviced every five years or so that assumes constant wear. With well made automatics you can stretch this to 10 years or more or wait for the watch to display significant timing changes before sending it in for a service. For the likes of TAG or Breitling, because they use ETA movements, any qualified professional horologist can do the internal overhauls and case seals and at current prices most will do it for significantly less than €200.

Case refurbs are a different matter. Rolex I know do them as part of their standard overhaul but I cannot comment on anyone else. The last time I had an Omega they weren't doing case refurbs. If the cost is around €500 I would expect it to include a full case refurb so worth checking this out.

dr.fuzzenstein

It depends what kind of works you prefer inside your watch:



Quartz


Auto

Quartz movements to me belong in €2 watches from chewing gum vending machines.
Would you buy a grandfather clock that's been converted to quartz?
I think some things should not have to be the newest and shiniest. If you do want quartz, I think no one does it better than Casio.

StealthRolex

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Quartz movements to me belong in €2 watches from chewing gum vending machines.
Would you buy a grandfather clock that's been converted to quartz?
I think some things should not have to be the newest and shiniest. If you do want quartz, I think no one does it better than Casio.

I used to think that too but Seiko changed my mind somewhat. Take a look at their 8f56 based models.

Full Rolex GMT functionality at a fraction of the cost.

dr.fuzzenstein

StealthRolex wrote: »

I used to think that too but Seiko changed my mind somewhat. Take a look at their 8f56 based models.

Full Rolex GMT functionality at a fraction of the cost.

Personally I make one exception to the quartz thing, I have a Seiko Kinetic, I just love the idea behind them.
No servicing with those? Not quite, the capacitors are going, so it will need an overhaul at some stage... But it held together for quite a few years now.

Wibbs

Do not make me come over there…

That's a quartz.


So's this.


and this…


Each one of them has more finishing and quality than the vast majority of production line ETA movements in the vast majority of mid tier watches today. You have a pic of an AP mechanical movement. Real top of the line in house stuff with a price to match. The vast majority of mechanicals today don't come close to an AP in fit, finish and handcraft.

art

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Quartz movements to me belong in €2 watches from chewing gum vending machines.
Would you buy a grandfather clock that's been converted to quartz?
I think some things should not have to be the newest and shiniest. If you do want quartz, I think no one does it better than Casio.

That's quite a limited view really: for a start, cheap auto movements will look as cheap as cheap quartz movements, you're proving nothing with those pics earlier. And secondly, it bypasses the fascinating heritage of quartz development entirely, nevermind some of the excellence of design; for example, the only watch I've ever owned that caused a watchmaker to leave his back room, with a joyous look on his face, to come show me the watch workings was a quartz.

There is lots of fascinating background to the development and types of quartz watches available right here on the forum, Wibbs himself being a fine source; you can check through these posts to perhaps get a better appreciation of the subject.

gerfmurphy

I would personally feel that a mechanical Movement is better value for money If you have 2k to spend.
I have owned alot Quartz watches (b1 was the most overrated).
my pathfinder is incredibly accurate and costs less than what I paid to have a link fixed on the seiko I had
and what I want in a Quartz is accuracy and function and with the pathfinder loads of gadgets in an indestructible case.
I have found a weird connection with a hand wound watch I have.
lovely to look at and requires me to stay alive. I have to give it a bit of time every now and then.
Just my 2cent but handwound is my personal favourite.
Something else to consider is the style of watch your keen on. Trad style watches usually are mechanical sporty type /more practical Quartz is more common

Royale with Cheese

I own two automatics, a Seiko 5 and a longines. Only thing that bothers me about them is not being able to switch between the two without having to reset the time on the one that hasn't been worn for a while.

Wibbs

gerfmurphy wrote: »

Just my 2cent but handwound is my personal favourite.

Separated at birth GM. I love hand crankers and I love leccy/quartz too, but autos leave me cold for some reason. I've had a few in my time, but flipped them very quickly after I got them. Plus I can feel the rotor flapping about which vexes me. I'm odd in fairness.

Mredsnapper

I think auto movements make sense for dive watches where you don't want to be fiddling with the crown too much but hand winders can be thinner and lighter, the movement is not hidden behind a rotor and the act of winding can be made into a nice exercise in mindfulness. It's a pity but 'Automatic movement' seems to have become a sort of tickbox requirement along with 'Saphire crystal' to help market watches as high end when compared to their hand wind/plexi cousins.

You'd never guess that my daily is a Speedy Pro

dr.fuzzenstein

Wibbs wrote: »

Separated at birth GM. I love hand crankers and I love leccy/quartz too, but autos leave me cold for some reason. I've had a few in my time, but flipped them very quickly after I got them. Plus I can feel the rotor flapping about which vexes me. I'm odd in fairness.

Exactly the other way round with me!
I love the feeling of the weight whizzing round, it is the number one reason I love my Kinetic. So I love a combination of quartz and automatic. Plus it's a hefty chunk of metal, you definitely know you're wearing it.
Used to have a handwound Bifora 1950's little watch, but gave it away because I never wore it and have regretted it ever since, but still wouldn't have worn it. But still miss it. How messed up is that?
Still have a LIDL automatic watch in a drawer somewhere, wasn't actually bad, but see no reason to wear it as a daily since the Seiko.
My personal favourite is a 1912 Longines gold pocket watch that's been in my family for over 100 years by now, it just sits in a drawer in a box and every now and then I take it out and wind it just to hear it tick. I would never dare wear that anywhere, unless there was a ball that required black tux, so I could wear a vest with the watch and chain. These balls happen exactly never in Ireland, or at least they wouldn't invite riff-raff like me round to them!

blue5000

bmtannam wrote: »

Would you advise me regardind the buying of a 2, 000 euro Tag Heuer or Breitling that has a quartz movement?
Would you shell out that kind of money for a non automatic watch?
Advice and personal preferences welcome.

I'd never fork out 2000 euro for a watch, I'd be looking at 200 euro max for a watch. As other people have said there are pros and cons to all the different movements, it's your choice, your money, buy what you prefer. But remember at those prices 90% of what you are buying is just the name.

gerfmurphy

blue5000 wrote: »

I'd never fork out 2000 euro for a watch, I'd be looking at 200 euro max for a watch. As other people have said there are pros and cons to all the different movements, it's your choice, your money, buy what you prefer. But remember at those prices 90% of what you are buying is just the name.

Im guessing your joking, 90% is a name? Max 200 is a personal choice but everything is subjective. There is a lot of watch choice the other side of 200 euro. Even some great value

blue5000

gerfmurphy wrote: »

Im guessing your joking, 90% is a name? Max 200 is a personal choice but everything is subjective. There is a lot of watch choice the other side of 200 euro. Even some great value

Yes, sort of joking, but what percentage of a 2k watch does it cost the manufacturer to produce? I'm a recent convert to wearing a watch, I've bought 3 in the last couple of months, all used and none over €200.

amacca

blue5000 wrote: »

Yes, sort of joking, but what percentage of a 2k watch does it cost the manufacturer to produce? I'm a recent convert to wearing a watch, I've bought 3 in the last couple of months, all used and none over €200.

Thats how its starts, at least thats how it started for me. Maybe you have willpower but I just find my self lusting after more and more with ever increasing price tags.

That one has a helium escape valve you say! (but I will in all likelihood never have the need or desire to go saturation diving - pfffft secondary consideration)

This one has a tegimented submarine steel case (mmmmmmmmmmust have)

Ah yeah but that one only has a thin layer of hardened steel at the surface this one is ice hardened throughout and its the hardest wearing dark coating you can get.

Sylvester stallone has developed a full on fetish for these ones!

These ones appear to use tiny little electromagnets which cause really high frequency oscillations to drive the movement resulting in a very smooth seconds hand.

That one says Top Gun on it........I love top gun!

These ones were worn in space.......SPACE!...and the MOON!......the MOOOON!

These ones were also worn in space but by Russians.......RUSSIANS!


I have contracted an illness, I hope you don't too.


OP: Its been mainly automatics for me so far but I have a hankering for a nice hand winder now after this thread (its like I've contracted a secondary infection).....my only non mechanical is a Suunto (Its also great imo)

Wibbs

Oh certainly. There are large margins on watches, particularly mechanical as they can charge more. They cost more than quartz watches to make, but outside your mad money Pateks and the like, they don't cost that much more. You can see this with the smaller brands like Stowa and the like, who can sell quality mechanicals at much cheaper prices than the big boys and they're not charities. However B, the cost of production is only a part of the overall cost. When you read that Rolex spent sixty million quid in one year on their US advertising budget alone, that gets passed onto the customers. IIRC Omega in the same period and market spent just under twenty million. God alone knows what Rolex's world-wide marketing budget is. Likely breaks well into the hundred million per year. The collective Swatch group budget is likely similar.

That's why a Sub and Speedmaster is at least double the real price it was in the 80's. These companies have very healthy profits, more than they had in the past, but IMH that's as much down to the fact that they sell more watches than they did, rather than the extra profits per watch. When I say they sell more, I mean that while fewer folks wear watches these days, those who do are more likely to have more than one and are more likely to buy a new one every few years. In the past most men(and women), if they had a watch, they had one watch for life.

On top of that it's a far easier sell in the market to price a mechanical at 2K than a quartz at the same price. Quartz is seen as cheap and lacking in "soul". For the most part they are cheap. With notable exceptions like the Seiko 9f, the vast majority of quartz movements are low or no jewel plastic pieces. That's the men's market anyway. The women's market have no issue buying 20,000 Pateks with quartz movements. Indeed as a general rule they prefer the convenience. They see it as another jewellery item. Maybe that's another psychological thing with men? A watch is a male jewellery item these days, but the mechanical movement makes it feel more engineered, more something extra beyond the jewellery aspect? A quartz movement doesn't have that element.

893bet

blue5000 wrote: »

Yes, sort of joking, but what percentage of a 2k watch does it cost the manufacturer to produce? I'm a recent convert to wearing a watch, I've bought 3 in the last couple of months, all used and none over €200.

You can apply that to everything.

The 200 euro watch probably only cost 20 euros to manufacture or less.

By that logic why spend 200 and not wear a 20 euro watch etc.

StealthRolex

893bet wrote: »

You can apply that to everything.

The 200 euro watch probably only cost 20 euros to manufacture or less.

By that logic why spend 200 and not wear a 20 euro watch etc.

Some people buy a watch not for what it does but also for what it represents - in some cases the name means something, in other cases it doesn't.

If you want you can spend 200 or 500 or 1000 or more on a watch that has no name and no branding, or a name no one knows. But that watch has a particular look and providence, and people are prepared to pay for that.

Bill Yao makes watches that look like other watches and can charge a small fortune. His name doesn't appear on the watch. Are the watches worth what he is charging? Likewise Eddie Platts, only significantly less expensive?

The logic behind your point is that a watch tells the time so why spend more than you have to for something that is just a tool.
That argument comes up time and time again and there is a word for it which I will not use here.

People like nice things and because of that other people provide nice things and either charge what it costs plus an acceptable margin or charge what they think they can get away with. The latter don't survive very long.

Either way everyone, or almost everyone, is happy. There is work for watch makers and there are watches for collectors and aficionados.

At 200 or 2000 or 20,000 there is something to be appreciated, or there should be. At 20 there isn't

StealthRolex

@Wibbs - your point on Rolex advertising budget one year.

Can we say for arguments sake the year was 2012?

If we can then that $60 million was 0.08% of their revenues.

or 6000 watches - out of 1,200,000 sold.

As Rolex is a private company with no shareholders to appease I think suggesting that they are looking to get back such a small drop in their ocean from the customer stretching it a bit.
You may be right of course, but I find it had to believe a company that has revenues of serveral billions a year is going to worry about how much of the cost of a watch has to go towards their advertising budget.

It might be different for the likes of Omega and TAG who give watches away to journalists or all people

Wibbs

StealthRolex wrote: »

@Wibbs - your point on Rolex advertising budget one year.

Can we say for arguments sake the year was 2012?

If we can then that $60 million was 0.08% of their revenues.

or 6000 watches - out of 1,200,000 sold.

As Rolex is a private company with no shareholders to appease I think suggesting that they are looking to get back such a small drop in their ocean from the customer stretching it a bit.
You may be right of course, but I find it had to believe a company that has revenues of serveral billions a year is going to worry about how much of the cost of a watch has to go towards their advertising budget.

It might be different for the likes of Omega and TAG who give watches away to journalists or all people

In which case you're saying Rolex are just upping the margins as much as the market will take for their watches and that their "luxury" tag is far more about marketing than reality? It's certainly nothing to do with "exclusivity" if they're pumping out well over a million watches per year.

No wonder the Rolex fanboys get the hard on for vintage examples produced in their thousands. In any event your Rolex Sub and similar is a far more expensive watch to buy today than it was say before the mid 90's. Yet they're making more of them compared to then and making them more cheaply what with the across the board improvements in production.

Oh and Rolex give away watches and more, they give company access to their major online and offline won't say a bad word agin the company fanboys. They're the same as the rest, only less obvious about it.

StealthRolex

Wibbs wrote: »

In which case you're saying Rolex are just upping the margins as much as the market will take for their watches and that their "luxury" tag is far more about marketing than reality? It's certainly nothing to do with "exclusivity" if they're pumping out well over a million watches per year.

No wonder the Rolex fanboys get the hard on for vintage examples produced in their thousands. In any event your Rolex Sub and similar is a far more expensive watch to buy today than it was say before the mid 90's. Yet they're making more of them compared to then and making them more cheaply what with the across the board improvements in production.

Oh and Rolex give away watches and more, they give company access to their major online and offline won't say a bad word agin the company fanboys. They're the same as the rest, only less obvious about it.

Not exactly. Rolex are also a registered charity so pay no corporation tax. Feel free to make whatever derogatory use of that you see fit. As a charity they must give money to charitable causes although they are secretive about who gets the money as reputable charities should be. We do know that some of that money goes on the Rolex Awards. They also sponsor upcoming horological talent.

I tried to find out what their R&D costs were but to no avail but looking at their latest models it would appear to be money well spent.

I get the impression you are not a Rolex "fan - boy" and that is your prerogative.

However suggesting that they are making more watches more cheaply due to production improvements they have developed shows their commitment to their business and not an effort on their part to shaft their fan-boys or customers. Any company that does not make improvements to their production methods is a poor one regardless of the effect it has on profits.

Like them or not Rolex are a massive success and despite the prejudice of some they and their fan-boys are not going away anytime soon.


Yes, it is a pain that they increase their prices your on year at rates that make 90's prices seem ridiculous compared to today but anyone who spends whatever it costs on a steel Rolex on either the new or pre-owned market knows that whether the money is well spent or not they will get their money back if they need it. There are not many other watches that perform similarly.

The Rolexes I bought ten years ago for 2K I can move today for 4k to 5k or more. That's a return of better than 10% APR and no bank has been offering that for the last decade.

If Rolex really is the same as the rest can you provide details on other companies that operate in the same way and can continue to function and produce watches at the same rate with no watch sales for a significant number of years without making any staffer redundant?

Regardless of how you feel about Rolex if you are spending seriously large sums of money on a luxury item would you rather the money go to a charity and get used for the better or get split up between a few shareholders who probably don't give a toss about customers or anyone else as long as it is profit for them?