View Single Post
Old 18 Apr 2005, 10:04 AM   #5
registered_user
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 164
Yeah, mechanical watches are still out there. The digital and quartz movement watches are more common because you can produce thousands of them at a time at very low cost in factories in China so everyone can afford a watch nowadays.

Mechanical watches were always expensive items, because the precision craftsmanship that goes into them is just plain worth a lot of money. Before there were quartz movement watches, most people just didn't have a watch and those that did usually held them in high value (which is why pocket watches were more popular than wristwatches even decades after wristwatches were invented... it's easier to protect your watch when it's not dangling on the end of your arm).

For an extremely brief period of time, there was an increase in the use of mechanical wristwatches after a few companies started pressing the gears out of sheet metal in large quantities. This time was brief both because quartz movement watches started to hit the market shortly afterward and because the manufacturing processes in these watches produced timepieces that weren't as accurate or durable as the old-world mechanical watches. They were cheap crap basically, and if you were going to buy cheap crap, you could get it cheaper in electrical form. If you wanted a good mechanical watch, it always cost a lot of money.

Mechanical watches have always been a luxury item for most people. Times haven't really changed in that respect.
registered_user is offline   Reply With Quote