The Quartz Crisis
An overview of the Quartz Crisis which put Swiss Mechanical Watches in jeopardy when electric watches became available.
2 min read
Have you ever heard of the Quartz Crisis? In the United States and Japan, it is often referred to as the Quartz Revolution. In fact, the only place you can be certain it will be called a crisis and not a revolution is in Switzerland. When you understand what the Quartz Crisis was, you can easily see why. This situation was a period in the 1970s and 1980s when quartz watches replaced mechanical watches. Naturally, this caused dramatic problems for the Swiss watchmaking industry.
Seiko released the first wristwatch with quartz movement in 1969. Japanese companies such as Seiko, Citizen, and Casio embraced the new technology and became the world's leading watch producers because watches with quartz movement were both more accurate and less expensive than mechanical watches.
Swiss watchmakers responded slowly, focused heavily on traditional watchmaking and mechanical watches. In 1970, there were more than sixteen hundred mechanical watch manufacturers. By the mid-1980s, there were fewer than six hundred. The quartz crisis eliminated two-thirds of the jobs in the Swiss watch industry.
How did the Swiss watch industry recover?
The Swiss watch industry recovered from the quartz crisis with restructuring, innovation, and new technologies. Restructuring was significant. The industry reorganized production, standardized development and testing, and improved industry education. Simultaneously, it embraced new technologies like computer-aided design and automated part production. Innovation created new technology such as better escapements.
The focus on quality and innovation is part of why in the 1990s, there was a resurgence in appreciation for traditional mechanical watchmaking. Firms refocused their businesses on treating mechanical watches as luxury goods rather than standard timekeeping devices. And this is where we stand today. A ten-dollar wristwatch will keep time better than a hundred-thousand-dollar mechanical watch.
But nobody walks around proud of their ten-dollar quartz watch, do they? We’re out of the crisis. The market isn’t about that, not anymore. If you’re in the market for a pre-owned Rolex in San Diego, give me a call. I can help you with something from my inventory or by helping you locate a watch I don’t have.
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