SJX[Purist]
8540
Some thoughts on the controversy...
Jan 05, 2008,08:08 AM
Hi ei8htohms,
Thanks for the input.
That's a good point and I do agree with it; that the
discontinuation of the observatory trials due to the success of the Japanese can
never be proven with any certainty, whatever is said is conjecture and personal
opinion. But I do believe it is one of the reasons that contributed to
the demise of the contests, several Swiss industry folks themselves have noted
that reason too. That is of course, personal opinion, and I've edited the
article to reflect that opinion. :-)
As for the second point, I suspect the reason is that a
large number of Credor and GS watches are quartz. It is logical to
assume, again this is conjecture, that most of the high-end Seiko watches
from the GS and Credor line are quartz. I cannot find out for sure, because
English language material is zero and online translators massacre the text, but
that is the most probable reason.
Interestingly enough, the quartz model range for
Grand Seiko is almost as broad as that for the mechanical watches, Seiko even
makes solid gold quartz GS watches with matching gold bracelets. However, I
can't find any quartz GS complications. The president of
Seiko Watch Corp., said something interesting some time ago, I do not remember
the exact words, but it was something along the lines of: We used to say all
watches would be made this way [quartz and kinetic] but we were wrong - people
love mechanical watches.
Lastly, Spring Drive watches do apparently require as much
labour as a mechanical watch, since the mainspring and gear train are similar to
mechanical watches, while the "escapement" still has lots of moving parts,
although it is regulated by a circuit.
- SJX