The quartz crisis

Thanks for heads up! I've watch lots of content from Simon Whistler's channels before (biographics) for example,  but not this one!

I have a lot of quibbles and disagreements with his history and the emphasis that he places on facts.

Yea, a few that popped out. 

One is it was the Santos and not the Tank that was the first wristwatch from Cartier.

Another is his idea that Rolex and Omega were luxury brands before the Quartz Crisis. They were definitely not. They cost a lot like a Festool saw cost a lot. Their price was due to their accuracy and durability, but if you were a wealthy man in the 1960s heading to the club, you would take your Omega or Rolex off, and put something impressive on.

A lot of other little bits and pieces here and there, but all in all, not a bad telling of history. However, it does make you think... if something so well documented and recent can be off when being told as history, how off are we about things that happened 400 years ago?

Frankly, there was a lot.  Elgin went out of business in 1968.  That is inconveniently timed to be caused by a watch that was released in 1969. Structural problems in the American watch industry had already eliminated most small brands.  Waltham (1958), Gruen (1958) and Timex (multiple reorganizations) all hit a wall before quartz.  He didn't give enough companies, like Hamilton, credit for bringing about quartz.

The more that I read, the more that I am convinced that the Quartz Crisis is misnamed and that the technological leap in cheap and accurate movements was only a part of an industry-wide consolidation that was inevitable.  He didn't mention Hong Kong.  Timex and manufacturing in Hong Kong had nothing to do with quartz (at first) but everything to do with downward pressure on prices.

Someone has to have written extensively about this.  Every online article is poorly sourced and always contains a mistake of fact or a lack of understanding about the interconnectedness of economies.

Yea. However, if you asked 10 historians to explain the housing crisis of 2008, and why it happened, you would get 10 different stories.

I suspect some of it is just inaccurate due to poor fact-finding, and some of it is the perception of the person telling the story.

However, it does make you think... if something so well documented and recent can be off when being told as history, how off are we about things that happened 400 years ago?

That's the thing about history, it only provides an approximation of the past. Putting together the clearest picture with the facts that are available. But it is interesting that as you say, something so recent is already having these issues.

*I say all of this as an academic that crosses over into the history field. 

Current events are just as muddy as history.

I have heard it described like this:  Read a newspaper article about something that you know intimately.  For me it would be a criminal trial or a board meeting.  Doesn't it frustrate you how many basic facts the newspaper account gets wrong? Now read a story about something that you don't know well:  adding or subtracting bus routes in your city.  You probably don't question any of the facts in the story, but why would you expect it to be more accurate?

In the 1960's and 1970's "Made in Japan" and "Made in Hong Kong" had a negative connotation.  The watch industry in Switzerland had a guild mentality. It was perhaps too easy to see blame in the Japanese watch industry.  This blame became the narrative through which all information was passed.  The story is easy to tell if you ignore inconvenient facts.  Reading 50 year old news accounts and trade papers is like reading newspapers.  You don't know where the mistakes are. The narrative wins.

Well said.

Yeah, pretty interesting. Simon Whistler has chalked up some pretty good material; though he likes to inject a little personal angst into his bits and pieces. 

Interesting video and I think well presented, however missed was Seikos rise in mechanical watches, even before quartz was launched to the general public - as in the 1968 Neuchatel in which Seiko was only beat by Omega. The video makes it seem as if Seikos provenance is based in quartz technology. 

"Read a newspaper"

What's a newspaper?

Nothing wrong with Simon Whistler's videos - the guy has like 10 channels on history, "mega projects", dark history etc. He's good to listen to while doing something else and has literally days of content on YouTube. 

That said, (and as others have pointed out) it's not 100% accurate, more like Wikipedia/high school term paper, but he has 15 or so people writing the scripts and he just reads them out in that mostly appealing British accent and makes bank 💰💰 from YouTube! 

I left a cheeky comment for him to do something on the Moscow watch factories 1 & 2 from the early 20th century to the present which I would... ✌️watch✌️!

🤪

Was the Quartz watch development a crisis?  I don’t think so at all. It’s called progress.

I lived through that period I was a child of the 60’s.

I was a teenager in The early 70’s, I remember seeing the first Quartz watches which were red LED digital displays then shortly after the LCD came in with green grey digital displays, they developed alongside calculators. We thought it was some sort of magic in those days. Then came Quartz analogue watches where you could actually see the one second tick, I and most others used to watch mesmerised.

it was only seen as a crisis by the hundreds of small independent watch makers, the big boys embraced it and adapted then moved on.

The watch industry and collecting would be a much more boring place without Quartz.

not to say I don’t love mechanical watches by the way, they still mesmerise me and this fascinating hobby or interest has cost me bloody thousands.