Rupert Hale
The Movement Is the Heart of the Watch
Slip a watch beneath your shirt cuff and you are wearing a small machine on your wrist. The case, the dial, the strap — these are what catch the eye across a dinner table, but the movement is the engine room. It determines how accurate the watch is, how often it needs attention, how it feels in the hand, and whether it will still be worth wearing in thirty years' time.
Two families dominate. Quartz movements draw power from a battery and a vibrating crystal. Mechanical movements draw power from a wound spring and a train of tiny gears. Neither is superior in the abstract; they simply ask different things of their owner, and reward different instincts.
How a Mechanical Movement Earns Its Keep
Mechanical watches come in two principal forms, and the distinction is worth knowing before you part with your money:
- Hand-wound (manual): you turn the crown each morning, tightening a mainspring that then unwinds slowly through the gear train. Most offer between 38 and 45 hours of power reserve, so a watch left on the dressing table over a weekend will usually stop.
- Automatic (self-winding): a weighted rotor spins with the movement of your wrist, topping up the mainspring as you go. A slipping clutch prevents you from overwinding it, and a well-worn automatic can run indefinitely without attention.
Inside, the escapement releases energy in measured ticks, while the balance wheel oscillates back and forth — commonly 21,600 or 28,800 times an hour. Jewels, usually between 17 and 25 tiny synthetic rubies, act as low-friction bearings at the points of greatest wear. Expect accuracy of roughly -10 to +20 seconds a day from a sound mechanical movement; a chronometer-rated piece might manage -4 to +6. That is not a fault. It is the nature of the beast.
The Quiet Virtues of Quartz
A quartz movement is a marvel of a different sort. A small current passes through a sliver of quartz crystal, which vibrates 32,768 times a second with extraordinary consistency. The resulting accuracy — typically within 15 seconds a month, and far better in thermocompensated examples — makes most mechanical watches look distinctly wayward.
Quartz asks almost nothing of you. There is no winding, no setting if you wear it regularly, and a battery will usually last two to three years. Its seconds hand ticks once per second, which some find practical and others find charmless. For a watch that lives in a desk drawer, travels in hand luggage, or accompanies you to the gym, that reliability is difficult to argue with.
The Ritual, the Romance and the Reality
The mechanical watch asks something of you each morning, and that small ceremony is much of its appeal. You wind the crown, feel the spring take up tension, set the hands, perhaps nudge the date. A gentleman who has performed that ritual with the same watch for twenty years develops a relationship with it that no battery can provide.
There is also the sweep of the seconds hand, gliding at five to eight beats a second rather than stepping once. There is the engineering, visible through a case back if you choose one. And there is heritage: a well-made mechanical movement can be cleaned, oiled and regulated by a watchmaker almost indefinitely, then handed to a son or grandson with a story attached.
The reality is less romantic. Mechanical watches drift, stop when unworn, and dislike hard knocks and magnetic fields — the magnets in laptop speakers and tablet cases being a common culprit. They are, in short, companions rather than appliances.
Servicing, Costs and Everyday Practicalities
- Quartz: a battery change every two to three years, typically £20–£40 including a new gasket and a reseal to preserve water resistance.
- Mechanical: a full service every five to seven years, usually £150–£500 depending on the movement, covering dismantling, cleaning, fresh oils and regulation.
Be honest about the economics. An inexpensive mechanical watch can cost more to service than it is worth, and there is no shame in saying so. A good quartz watch, by contrast, may run a decade on a handful of batteries. If you swim, shower or work with your hands, check the water resistance rating rather than trusting the word "waterproof", and have gaskets renewed at every battery change.
Matching the Movement to the Man
If you want one watch to do everything — the office, the weekend, the airport — a well-made quartz or a robust automatic with 100 metres of water resistance will serve you admirably. If watches are a pleasure rather than a utility, a mechanical dress watch on a slim leather strap is the more satisfying choice, with a quartz piece kept for holidays and hard wear.
A sensible two-watch wardrobe covers almost every occasion: something mechanical and quietly handsome for tailoring, something quartz and robust for everything else. Both will tell the time perfectly well. Only one will tell you something about the man wearing it.
