The Advantage of an Automatic Watch Is Romantic or Intangible But Fails in the Practical Category

One reader, Erik, writes:

A decent quartz Seiko costing $100 will last several lifetimes with nothing more than a $3 battery every 5 years. Mechanicals haven't a single monetary or functional advantage over a decent quartz watch. To believe otherwise is fooling yourself.

Related articles

As Watch Tastes Change, Less Is More

A New Level of Accuracy for the Quartz Watch?

My First Lesson in the Hazards of Generosity

The New Seiko Astron - What Time is it Where You Are?

Comments

[Angelo]

If there's a complete societal breakdown----the end of civilization as we know it----bands of gangs roaming the streets, food in short supply, on one in charge----what if your quartz battery dies and no more are available? Ditto if you land on an Island like the cast of "Lost" did. If you have an old Timex with a mainspring, you just wind it every day. It'll last forever and probably won't require any special service either, like these newer automatics do. This is also the reason I'm upset that I'm not a candidate for Lasics eye surgery. I wear glasses. If I'm shipwrecked on an island or if there's that anarchy----my glasses break and I can't get new ones, what am I supposed to do?

[Gary]

I'm in the same boat with you regarding the glasses, Angelo. I guess we'll be the ones taken by the Smoke Monster.

[Bill]

Um... Angelo... Society has collapsed,fallout poisons the water, gangs rule the street, there is no food, but everything's supposed to be fine because my wrist watch doesn't need a battery? I don't think so. If that happens we're probably all dead, but the watches on our wrists might be of interest to archaeologists in the far future-- if there are any.

[jonnybardo]

Angelo, sounds like a great watch commercial. Might as well throw some zombies in there as well.

As for what Erik said, yeah, that's true. But spending more than 30 bucks on a watch isn't practical. For most of my adult life I'd spend $30-50 on a watch and it would last 4-5 years until it broke or was lost. Over the last couple years I've mainly spent $150-300 on watches and most of them I've lost interest in and are sitting in a box.

The differences in more expensive watches become more and more invisible, less and less tangible and practical. Watch aficionados like to say otherwise, but the vast majority of people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a $300 Seiko and a $10K Panerai, in a similar way that people not into rap music can't tell the difference between A Tribe Called Quest and Biggie Smalls (which in the world of classic rock is probably as large a difference as Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath).

All hobbies and interests have a developed and refined sensibility, and it rarely has to do with anything easily quantifiable.