With quartz watches/movements - At what price level do you start to get good quality ones?(Or if that is too subjective: What quartz movements are good quality and won't break the bank?"

subscribed

Grand seiko quarts. Best in the business

In my experience the price level is all over the place for a "quality" quartz watch. I will use Seiko as an example. You can buy a Seiko Dolce model SACM150 with the 8J41 movement for around $400. The movement is rated to +/- 10 a year. That is the same annual deviation that you get from the Grand Seiko 9F series of movements that come in watches that are normally priced in the $2,500-$4,000 price range. The 9F movements are fully serviceable, and I assume the 8J41 is as well. In between those price ranges you can pick up a quartz Seiko Tuna for around $1,500 with a 7C46 movement. The movement is rated to +/- 15 seconds a month like most quartz movements, but it is serviceable, produces high torque to move bigger hands, and has a 5 year battery life, while the 2 previous movements mentioned only have a 3 year service life. I own a Tuna with the 7C46 and I love it. I also own a Grand Seiko with a 9F movement and I love it. And even with it small stature I wouldn't mind owning one of the Dolces as well in the future.

That's a good question.

First of all:

The movement is not the only factor that drives a price of a watch.

Design

Productionprocesses

Design

Materials

Finishingquality

Brand image

and so on should ve also considered.

I think you can find one of the best quartz movements in relation to price in the Bulova Precisionist 96B158.

Although everything else around tge movementis on the lower side. But for around 250 dollar an high presicion and sweeping second is nothing to ignore.

Longines VHP is also quite damous but not cheap in any means.

Bruno Söhnle gives their movements a beautiful finish and exhebition case back.

Anyway. I think quartz qatches are in general something reliable also in long term. I never had any issues with any of them so far.

I don't know what kind of watches you owned before. But I would never buy a watch with a chinese movement, which were used in the past intensivly by fashion brands. They survive usually not longer than 6 months to 2 years.

But any ETA or Ronda movement is fine. I also bought once a watch with a Miyota quartz as a present several years ago....still fine.

Anyway I would never pay more than 500 $€£ for watch with a quartz movement. In very rare exeptions with high finished watches and good brand reputation you can up to 1K.

But that's it. After this limit there can't be enough arguments to pay more.

Other than the movements put into very expensive watches such as Seiko, ETA, Ronda, Seiko, and even Miyota movements are accurate and reliable. To be honest I don't see any reason to spend a fortune on a quartz movement as they are ALL accurate. Even the cheaper ones will only mean you have to change the time once or twice a year.

F91W

Ameriquartz in the Islander watch brand are great value and quality.

It's a bit tricky, you get what you pay for. Even ETA makes inexpensive quartz movements, and it may show. Personally I had good luck will all Ronda and Seiko quartz movements, so far. I also got some cheap Chinese ones, and while they all functioned, the most common problem is a wobbly seconds hand.

@AdrianR I hope you don't mind me tagging you here so that you can provide us with more insight!

wow this is one of the most tricky questions.

Most quartz movements are generally on par to each other regarding time accuracy. They are more accurate than the most expensive mechanical watches. As for the quality, it's best to stick with the already proven famous wide used brands like seiko ETA and ronda.

Personally I would not pay anything more than 500 USD for a quart movement.

I’m sure my take on this subject pales in comparison to some more knowledgeable crunchers. But I’ve always considered that once you start seeing thermocompensation taken into account, you’ve hit “high end” quartz.

Many would say Grand Seiko’s 9F movements are pretty much top of the food chain (they supposedly grow their own crystals), then I’d imagine things like Breitling’s Superquartz, Longines’ V.H.P., Citizen’s Chronomaster, Bulova’s high-frequency Precisionist, etc… fall somewhere below that.

I’m not sure the price point at which one hits the point of diminishing returns for high end quartz… but then again, we’re watch collectors, so that’s a mile marker we all passed long ago. 😆

if you want a fairly price quartz watch, Id recommend looking into the Bulova Lunar Pilot. a great chronograph under 1K USD and theyve made it somewhat smaller at around 43mm I believe. its a very high frequency quartz with its biggest downfall (IMO is the size may limit the wearability.) it is however a strap monster.

Thank you, HS, for the compliment, but my experience was in manufacturing custom quartz crystals and I don’t know any more than the next guy about the movements. As a side note, the Canadian military would occasionally order watch crystals from our family business and since we weren’t set up to produce something that small, we found it saved us and the DND time and money to buy cheap quartz watches and remove the crystals and forward them to the DND rather than order just the crystals alone from a supplier.

That is the economic power of mass production. Years ago someone pointed out that if you tried to build a car from purchased parts, it would cost something like 15 times the cost of buying the same car from a dealer. They used that as evidence that parts prices are a rip-off. It’s actually an illustration of the awesome efficiency of mass production. Packaging, labelling, shipping, tracking and storing individual parts for (and at) thousands of dealers and allowing the parts dealer to make a profit for his trouble is what drives the cost up.

I second that. I have two myself.

👍

Accuracy is a funny thing we obsess over. We all have internet-connected phones. Those phones (since they can call home) are as accurate as the Atomic Clock.

Watch snobs seem to hate Belova, but I got my watch (which retails for $450) used for $90 because the crystal was cracked. A new crystal directly from Citizen was only $30.

This quartz watch is accurate to within 15 seconds per month.

As you can see by the picture, it has a date complication, which means every other month, I have to advance the date back up to the 1st. By the time two months have gone by, I'm theoretically only 30 seconds off from the Atomic Clock by which I zeroed it on, and I jump right back to dead-on accurate for weeks to come.

It's been proven that a $10 Casio is more likely to be accurate then a finely-tuned Rolex. Just buy whatever you think looks good on you. IMO, watches are 100% superfluous accessories. We only wear them in this day and age to compliment an outfit. If you need to know down-to-the-second what time it is, grab your phone.

All that said, if 15 seconds per month isn't sharp enough for you, spring for a Bulova Precisionist (starting at $315) or a Citizen Eco-Drive (starting at $580). The Citizen Caliber 0100 ($7,400) is literally the most accurate watch in history.

The problem with the 8J41 is that it doesn't have user-serviceable timing adjustment, unlike 9Fs. When the crystal ages and timing drifts - which happens on all quartz movements - you won't be able to dial the timing back to it's factory rating. 9Fs and many older Seiko quartz movements can be adjusted by a watchmaker or owner and brought back to factory accuracy with the proper equipment to read the timing signal.

They were originally advertised at +/- 10s/year, but they aren't thermocompensated, so they tend to run a lot faster if not constantly worn. Bulova doesn't advertise an accuracy rating anymore for that reason.

Most 9F movements are regulated to +/- 10 seconds per year. Some are regulated to +/- 5 seconds a year. You can tell which ones that are, they have a star on the dial.

That's news to the people at Seiko Japan !

I'd look into high frequency Bulova watches if, for nothing else, than to understand them a bit better. Start here: https://www.ablogtowatch.com/new-bulova-accutron-ii-uhf-sport-watches/

(I have no affiliation to that site...)

I say they start at around 20 bucks when it comes to Casio.

A big thank you for all you're advice, opinions and replies. It's been 8a amazing read so far!

https://www.grand-seiko.com/us-en/collections/movement/quartz/9f86

It is news to the people at Seiko Japan because:

For many, many years, their own PR kits handed out to us at Baselworld press meetings supplied the +/- 5 seconds rate per year for the 9F for almost two decades. This is why you will see it stated on many older websites/blogs/articles if you look around the net.

Now, officially online, they talk about +/- 10 seconds a year, which seems to be a misnomer of their PR department or they don't know what they want to really say 🙃. Or they are being very clever...

In watchmaking jargon, a watch with +/- 5 seconds per year rating means it can (will) run in a range between 5 seconds fast to 5 seconds slow - therefore the watch has a rate spread of 10 seconds a year.

However, IF the +/- is being used as general PR commment, (non-technical horologically) then the latter 'spread' is inferred (i.e. the +/- sign means equal to 'about' 10 seconds a year.) They have lost something in translation here...Or they are making it deliberately murky, to supply buyers a reason for purchasing a higher priced model, with no more accuracy than the base 9F supplies because it has a star now on the dial...If they really meant technically +/- 10 seconds a year, this is a rate spread of 20 seconds per year, which is rather mediocre for a quartz wristwatch in this price class, and nothing to be proud of!

I don't know exactly when this 'star' system on the dial was implemented for these 'more accurate' 9F based models, but I have three watches with the 9F, none of which has a 'star' on the dial, and the oldest, a Seiko Astron Anniversary model (from 2002? 2003?) still keeps time at +/- 3 seconds a year with battery and gasket change regularly done.. The other two 9F movements, (2008? 2010?) - also lacking the star), have never gone outside the 5 seconds fast/5 seconds slow - it is uncanny how good the 9F powerhouse is.

That is interesting information. I wonder when they made the change. I have a Grand Seiko as well with the 9F and after the first year it gained 4 seconds. I think if you are only ever going to get one Grand Seiko it should be one with a 9F.

9F is just superb....The older Citizen Chronomaster (still findable on sales sites here and there, but slowly dissappearing) is more accurate, and has a perpetual calendar window - very handy in everyday life!

But the 9F has the spring to counter seconds hand backlash, a sealed movement, a two step seconds hand motion (invisible to the eye) and a super fast date change. It also looks classy 🤗

I don't know how the battery driven Citizen Chronomasters are compensated for time keeping, but the 9F is just simplicity iteself: the quartz oscillator's abberrations and drifting is recorded/calibrated and fed into a chip in each movement so that these can be 'zeroed out'.

And most important (for me anyway!) : there are parts for 9F repair for decades into the future... I am not so sure that will be the case if a damaged Chronomaster needs work 15 years from now...

I was coming to ASK this, I'm by NO means an expert or even very knowledgeable but I AM familiar with Seiko. Isn't Grand Seiko quartz driven somehow?

Grand Seikos come in three different movements: Spring drive, mechanical and quartz.

I was excited by the smaller Lunar Pilot when it was announced, but just looked on their web page to see it's 43.5mm. Is 1.5mm smaller enough to make a difference? Why even bother? Beautiful watch. Not questioning your comment in any other way. Beautiful watch and worth the money, but I sure wish there was a 41mm version.