Though once poo-pooed, watch collectors are waking up to quartz. It's increasingly appreciated for all the reasons that made the technology successful in the first place: accuracy, robustness and cost. But it also holds a special place in the history of watches and timekeeping itself.
The history of quartz timekeeping goes back to clocks using the tech back in the early 20th century. The first quartz wristwatch (see below) came in 1969, but the "quartz era" when it dominated the watch industry took off in the 1970s and went right through the '80s. It was an odd time in watches.
Though initially expensive, quartz quickly made watches cheap and easy to mass-produce. New models were turned out quickly and often even viewed as disposable, few having the chance to become the kind of watch future collectors would look to as iconic. Traditional watchmakers went out of business in droves and often look back on the era as "The Quartz Crisis." For a time, the word quartz was simply equated with "cheap," low-quality and "not a 'real' watch" by those who fancy themselves aficionados. But that's changed in recent years.
Those once-reviled quartz decades now hold nostalgia and watch collectors have come to acknowledge some of quartz's genuinely superior qualities. As long as they've also got their column-wheel chronographs and haute horlogerie, they can also appreciate quartz watches as something fun, affordable and casual as well as holding an incontrovertibly important place and influence in watch history and design.
There are many quartz watches that are well-known and have had a cultural impact — more than we can enumerate here. Rather, we want to zero in on those quartz watches that are true milestones. Let us know more great, noteworthy or iconic quartz watches, or just those you love, in the comments.
Seiko Astron
- Year Introduced: 1969
There are a number of quartz Seiko watches that are also iconic, though not necessarily specifically for being quartz. But the Astron is the OG. It was the very first quartz watch introduced to market, at the tail end of 1969, beating a consortium of 20 Swiss companies to the punch. The brand has since remained at the cutting edge of new timekeeping tech: Seiko's Spring Drive technically uses a quartz crystal but is truly a hybrid mechanism that's in a different class than what a "quartz watch" is usually understood to mean.
Rolex Oysterquartz
- Year Introduced: 1972
Rolex doesn't make quartz watches anymore, but it wasn't immune to the industry's obviously shifting tides. Rolex was originally part of the consortium developing the first Swiss quartz watch, the Beta 21, but it ended up going its own way and introducing the Oysterquartz in 1972. It formed its own collection, but still looked very Rolex, though with an angular case design that fit the times — and it certainly wasn't a budget alternative.
Swatch Jellyfish
- Year Introduced: 1983
Now, this is the kind of watch that represents quartz ubiquity to many. Despite the multiple designs that debuted in 1983 and the endless variants since, there's an iconic and recognizable Swatch look — or maybe it's an attitude. Aside from the style(s), it's simply the level of impact Swatch had both on general culture and the watch industry (more or less saving traditional watchmaking) that makes it iconic today. The Swatch Jellyfish shown above is just one of the models introduced in 1983, but it represents its quartz and plastic nature well by putting it all on display.
Casio G-Shock 5600
- Year Introduced: 1983
There are surely many Casio watches and more G-Shocks that can be considered iconic, but the original square model from 1983 is at the top of the heap. It launched the brand and it remains the most recognizable and representative G-Shock today — despite the endless parade of shapes, sizes and variants from the Casio sub-brand. G-Shocks also show that quartz isn't just about being cheap, but can create some of the most durable and practical watches in existence.
Breitling Aerospace
- Year Introduced: 1985
Perhaps no watch better represents the use of quartz in a serious, professionally oriented way than the Breitling Aerospace. It was the height of the '80s, quartz was in full swing and the best of current tech and traditional watchmaking was on display with the combination analog-digital (ana-digi) displays of these watches made for pilots. With quartz comes all kinds of functionality that are impossible or massively complicated in a traditional, mechanical watch, and Breitling used it in a purposeful way for pilots.
Casio F91W
- Year Introduced: 1989
Here it is: just about the cheapest, most ubiquitous little quartz watch in existence. It so cheap (around $15 on Amazon, at the time of writing) that more or less anyone can afford one, and the brand has made millions of them — annually. Once considered geeky, later ironic, and then finally acknowledged as a cultural icon, the humble Casio F91W even has a place in the London Design Museum. It represents cheap, digital quartz watches as a whole, and it also represents one of the biggest players in the quartz game, Casio.
