Photo Credit (CC 2.0 license): Joe Haupt
Some watch enthusiasts have been looking at vintage quartz watches from the 1970s and 1980s as a collecting alternative due to the rising prices of vintage mechanical wristwatches. But does this make sense? Are vintage quartz watches investable?
In a word, no. With only a few exceptions, I don’t believe it is wise to purchase vintage quartz watches for investment purposes.
I do want to give you a caveat though. This is only my (informed) opinion. And there are many different opinions out there in watch land. Some collectors simply love vintage quartz watches and must own them.
And honestly, if you’re only buying for the pure joy of owning an original 1980s Casio G-Shock or 1970s Timex Electric Dynabeat, then have at it. Just don’t expect to make a fortune from your hobby. The secondary market almost always assigns a lower value to vintage quartz watches compared to similar-quality vintage mechanical watches.
In my opinion, there is one big reason why vintage quartz watches are an investment non-starter when compared to vintage mechanical wristwatches: longevity!
But in order to grasp why this is the case, we have to first understand the basics of quartz watch technology. Quartz wristwatches work like this:
1) A battery delivers power to a microchip embedded on a circuit board.
2) The microchip relays electricity to a tiny quartz crystal, causing it to vibrate at 32,768 Hz.
3) The microchip then measures these vibrations and converts them into electrical impulses.
4) The electrical impulses drive a tiny motor at a rate of 1 pulse each second.
5) The motor drives a small set of gears, which in turn move the watch hands (and any other functions the watch may have).
As you can see, the heart of a quartz watch movement isn’t really the quartz crystal, but is instead the microchip. And this is also where the Achilles heel of all quartz watches resides.
You see, solid state circuitry is a consumable component. Every pulse of electricity that goes through a circuit board degrades that electronic component little by little, regardless of how low the voltage might be.
This process, which is known as electromigration, is effectively imperceptible under normal circumstances. Although it is silently at work in every electronic device, including mobile phones, TVs, laptops and appliances, in most situations these devices become obsolete or suffer other, unrelated failures long before electromigration kills them.
Unfortunately, wristwatch aficionados are implicitly asking vintage quartz watches to last forever (or at least a couple hundred years). But because of electromigration, we know that won’t happen.
Instead, your vintage quartz watch will happily tick along with only the occasional battery change for a couple decades or longer. Then it will suddenly die without any warning.
And once a microchip dies from the effects of electromigration, there is no resuscitating it. It is toasted, finished, stone-cold dead.
Our modern consumer society has learned to live with this limitation inherent to integrated circuits. We don’t generally bother trying to repair modern electronics because, by their very nature, they can’t be repaired. The best you can do is swap out the dead microchip or circuit board for a new, compatible one.
Vintage quartz watches are no exception to this rule. Most are not serviceable because it was (correctly) assumed that it would simply be cheaper and easier to buy a new one when the inevitable finally happened.
Even if you are determined to restore your prized vintage quartz watch, getting a functioning replacement movement will become increasingly difficult as the decades pass. Eventually, you may be forced to substitute a modern quartz movement for an unavailable original movement. But at that point you are into dreaded Frankenwatch territory – a place no vintage watch collector wants to go.
Incidentally, this is an issue that also impacts the collectability of all vintage consumer electronics. I explore this topic more fully in an article titled “Will the Original iPhone Become a Valuable Future Antique?”
Quartz watches have another big durability issue as well. It isn’t uncommon for their batteries to leak, particularly if they’ve been sitting around unused for many years. Once a quartz watch’s battery leaks, it is almost a foregone conclusion that its movement is utterly destroyed.
This is in stark contrast to well-made mechanical wristwatches, which can sit abandoned in a drawer for a decade or longer and come out with few ill effects, other than needing a routine servicing.
Another largely unrecognized concern for quartz watch collectors is that early vintage quartz watches from the 1970s and early 1980s were nearly all over-engineered – a surprisingly common feature in products using new technologies.
For example, early personal computers were often housed in ridiculously thick steel chassis. This was because a computer could easily cost several thousand dollars in the 1980s, and you wanted to be sure yours didn’t break prematurely.
Now, you might be wondering to yourself how over-engineering could possibly be a bad thing. The answer is very simple; it leads to unrealistic expectations about product longevity based on customers’ experiences with the early, over-engineered models.
You can verify this phenomenon by perusing watch forums. There are dozens of different people posting about how their vintage quartz watch is still running like a champ even though it is 35 or 40 years old. What is left unsaid is that 1) those quartz watches were built to much higher standards than most quartz watches from the mid 1980s or later and 2) in spite of being over-engineered, the circuit boards in those vintage quartz watch movements are still being incrementally “used up” over time.
All quartz watches will inevitably fail one day, we simply don’t know when. My best estimate is that most quartz watches (even fairly cheap ones) will last 25 to 35 problem-free years. After that, I would expect a small (but still significant) percentage of the surviving population to fail every year until 50 to 70 years have elapsed, when there is only a remnant population left functioning.
Yes, mechanical wristwatches will wear out eventually too (as will anything with moving parts). But fine mechanical wristwatches are meant to be serviced. Any failed or worn parts can be swapped out with replacement pieces by a skilled watch repair technician – an avenue not open to most quartz watch movements.
In short, fine mechanical wristwatches are heirlooms that can be passed from generation to generation. Vintage quartz wristwatches, on the other hand, were meant to be disposable (albeit long-lived).
Vintage Men’s Rolex Oysterquartz Wristwatches for Sale on eBay
(This is an affiliate link for which I may be compensated)
As with every rule of thumb, there are exceptions. A handful of quartz movements are built to incredibly high standards. Two examples are the superb Grand Seiko 9F caliber, which has a 50 year service interval (excluding battery changes), and the magnificent Rolex Oysterquartz series, which is one of the most underappreciated Rolex calibers of all time.
However, these two quartz movements are very much exceptions. They are finished just as well as any luxury mechanical movement and were built to be serviced, unlike most quartz watches. They are also thermo-compensated in order to account for changes in ambient air temperature, which can (minutely) throw off the timekeeping of lesser quartz watches.
Consequently, these ultra-accurate quartz movement masterpieces are known as high-end quartz. They even feature regulating levers for precision tuning, something usually only found on quality mechanical watch movements.
If the circuit board in one of these quartz super-watches dies after many decades of reliable use, you would move heaven and earth to replace it! This is something no one would ever dream of doing with a run-of-the-mill quartz watch, and with good reason.
Grand Seiko 9F Quartz Movement Wristwatches for Sale on eBay
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I should also note that there are a few, non-masterpiece quartz movements that might be worth the attention of open-minded horologists. For instance, the tiny, yet robust quartz movements found in vintage Must de Cartier tank wristwatches are very well finished and quite reliable. But these make sense because they are the right movement (they were produced in-house via a Cartier/Ebel joint venture), in the right watch (the Must de Cartier tank was an iconic 1980s/1990s fashion watch), at the right price (Must de Cartier tanks rarely sell for more than $2,000).
In most instances though, you’re best investment is buying vintage watches with a mechanical heart. And I suspect many watch collectors are just fine with that.
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