Quartz watches, history and models – Part One
Time：
2024-01-10 10:31
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Who invented the quartz watch movement, and when was the quartz watch created? How does a quartz watch work, and what are the best quartz operated watches currently available? Here are some of the questions we’ll answer in this series dedicated to uncovering the history of quartz watchmaking; from the beginning of the race to high-precision time measurement down to the reveal of the first quartz watch and beyond. Quartz technology and quartz clocks appeared decades before the first quartz wristwatch came in 1969; the latter is the endpoint of a long-term process geared towards incessantly improving a watch’s accuracy, started towards the end of 1950. Back then, the aim was to improve a mechanical watch’s accuracy by increasing its frequency to ten beats per second. Towards the end of the 1950s, the market was flooded with watches running at eight beats per second.
Who invented the quartz watch movement, and when was the quartz watch created? How does a quartz watch work, and what are the best quartz operated watches currently available? Here are some of the questions we’ll answer in this series dedicated to uncovering the history of quartz watchmaking; from the beginning of the race to high-precision time measurement down to the reveal of the first quartz watch and beyond. Quartz technology and quartz clocks appeared decades before the first quartz wristwatch came in 1969; the latter is the endpoint of a long-term process geared towards incessantly improving a watch’s accuracy, started towards the end of 1950. Back then, the aim was to improve a mechanical watch’s accuracy by increasing its frequency to ten beats per second. Towards the end of the 1950s, the market was flooded with watches running at eight beats per second.
The first mechanical 5 Hertz wristwatch debuted in 1966. Girard–Perregaux won the race to market the first-ever ten beats per second mechanical timepiece. A year later, Seiko introduced the Lord Marvel, and its luxury sibling, introduced the venerable Grand Seiko V.F.A. in 1969.High-precision offering was stunning, as confirmed by the awards during the fiercest competitions held at the Geneva or Neuchâtel observatories, respectively.
Back then, wristwatches were, first and foremost, tool watches, and their accuracy was an essential requirement during the unstoppable age of industrial development, both in Europe and overseas. The competition had just begun; also, the development of digital technologies was coming.
Who invented the quartz watch?
The first watch operated by a quartz movement was invented in 1927 by Canadian engineer Warren Marrison. Ten years later, Issac Koga, a Japanese scientist and inventor created the first-ever Japanese quartz watch. Using a quartz crystal’s property of oscillating at a precise frequency when a voltage is applied to it, the quartz technology significantly improved the watches’ accuracy. Those mentioned above were the dawn of the quartz era; the technology was far from being adopted in a wristwatch. Seiko‘s managers were the first ones to envision a promising commercial opportunity, and the company began working relentlessly on reducing the size of a quartz clock’s movement and design a quartz watch mechanism to be housed in a wristwatch.
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Quartz watches, history and models – Part One