Quartz Pocket Watch

The Quartz Pocket Watch: A precise and reliable pocket watch

Precise and unmatched, the quartz pocket watch allows you to proudly display the vintage and retro fashion of the pocket watch while keeping the freedom to access a precise time without the obligation to wind your watch daily. A simple battery is enough to make this pocket watch work every day and the mechanism is not subject to any time delay like a mechanical pocket watch would be.

The Quartz Pocket Watch is a type of watch that can withstand any test

The quartz pocket watch is a small revolution in the world of classical watchmaking where amateurs and enthusiasts of chain watches are generally used to winding mechanical movements. The quartz battery offers the pocket watch a thinner case, a more precise time accuracy, almost no maintenance and more personalized cases dedicated to all ages and all social categories.

The Quartz Pocket Watch : A very good alternative to the mechanical movement

Although the quartz wristwatch is a must nowadays, the quartz pocket watch is a small revolution in the field of pocket watches. Since its invention in the 15th century in Germany by the Nuremberg master locksmith Peter Henlein, who had the brilliant idea of placing a motorized rotor inside his own portable watches, the pocket watch has gone through many historical twists and turns. Although initially very inaccurate, the first chain watch had a mechanical key winding. It required the chain to be "rewound" around the barrel, which would then run at a constant speed over a flat surface to give a more or less accurate time.

From the mechanical movement to the Quartz battery

The first pocket watches were far from being precise, and did not even have a minute hand. It then underwent several evolutions that greatly improved its time accuracy. The automatic movement invented in 1770 by Louis Abraham Perrolet made it possible to do without the daily manual winding of the pocket watch. The automatic movement works thanks to the movement of the wearer of the watch who by moving his wrist or the watch inside the pocket of gousset makes rock the stem and thus winds the barrel around the mainspring in a completely autonomous way, As for the quartz battery, it will be necessary to wait still 2 centuries, it is only in 1969 that the first watch functioning with quartz battery was manufactured by the Japanese manufacturer Seiko. There is no need to recount the success of the quartz watch, because it is quite possible that you have one next to you on your desk while reading these lines.

Although some may think that the pocket watch loses its authenticity with a quartz battery, it is nonetheless a reliable and accurate way to tell the time with remarkable time accuracy. In addition, the quartz battery takes up very little space in the case and consumes very little energy. It generally has a life span of several years ranging from two to twenty years. At its end, it can easily be replaced by opening the back case and its very low price gives it a market value almost null and allows to use it by all the ranks of the company.

The Quartz Pocket Watch is thinner and lighter than the mechanical one

A quartz pocket watch is easily recognized by its dial which is generally opaque compared to the mechanical pocket watches where one can admire the mechanized wheels through the glass. The crown is also smaller on quartz pocket watches and it can be turned only by unlocking it by a stretching movement upwards to adjust the hands. The quartz pocket watch also has a thinner case than the mechanical pocket watch because the watch's circuit boards are miniaturized and the components are much smaller than the mechanical or automatic pocket watch, which usually require a multitude of watch components and many jewels to limit the friction of the parts.

The Quartz Pocket Watch need very low maintenance

Another good point of the quartz pocket watch is that it requires very little maintenance, it does not need to be wound daily, there is no need to pay attention to the entry of dust into the movement, and it is more obvious to fully seal the case of a quartz pocket watch than a pocket watch with a mechanical movement. 

The Quartz Pocket Watch is appreciated by men and women

The quartz gusset watch is more appreciated by women who see it as an ideal way to accessorize a look. While these gentlemen are more fussy about the choice of a watch, its movement and its specificities, women look more at the aesthetic side of the watch. The latter is more noticeable on the quartz pocket watch because it allows fully decorated cases, claps and dials, which would be very difficult to implement on a mechanical pocket watch.

Men also appreciate the quartz pocket watch especially if they have to wear it only on a special occasion and prefer to forsake the chain timepiece in everyday life in favor of the mechanical pocket watch. There are of course beautiful models of quartz pocket watches, but the watchmakers are more concerned with the creation of mechanical models when it comes to pocket watches, in order to preserve their authenticity, which is often sought by their buyers.

The Quartz Pocket Watch manages better the additional functions

It is also more obvious to give several functions and a quartz gusset watch that its digital dial will be able to manage in a simple way and the control of its functions will usually be done by small buttons around the frame. When it comes to placing several modules on a mechanical watch including the chronograph, chronometer, day and night display or moon phases, it is a much more detailed work of watchmaker and this kind of mechanical movement is called complication. Depending on the meticulousness of the work and the number of complications desired, the price of the mechanical watch can easily soar and become unaffordable for the lower classes.

The Quartz Pocket Watch: popular with all ages and social categories

Finally, the quartz pocket watch is very popular for pocket watches dedicated to children but also for necklace watches to wear around the neck. While its simplicity and warm patterns are the main arguments to make the quartz pocket watch worn by children, its low weight is the major asset to wear it as a necklace. Moreover, its autonomy coupled with its unwavering time accuracy makes it a watch dedicated to all ages unlike a mechanical winding or automatic movement that requires a minimum of knowledge and know-how to use it properly.

Learn more about Quartz Pocket Watch

You may not believe in astrology, but there is no doubt that the planets rule our lives. We rise when the Sun rises (or sometime after) and set when it sets. We have a calendar based on days, months and years - periods of time that relate to the way the Moon and Earth move around the Sun in the sky. For most of history, people found this type of 'astronomical timekeeping' good enough for their needs. But as the world became more frenetic and sophisticated, people needed to keep track of hours, minutes and seconds as well as days, months and years. This meant finding accurate ways to keep track of time. Pendulum clocks and mechanical watches were once the best way to do this. Today, many people use quartz clocks and watches instead, but what are they and how do they work ?

How do ordinary clocks work

We all know that a clock keeps time, but have you ever thought about how it does it? Probably the simplest clock you can make is a talking clock. If you count the seconds by repeating a phrase that takes exactly one second to say (like "elephant one", "elephant two", "elephant three"..), you'll find that you can keep time pretty accurately. Try it. Say your elephants from one to sixty and see if you can time the hour to the minute, relative to your watch. Not bad, eh? The problem is, most of us have better things to do all day than say "elephant." That's why people invented clocks. Some of the earliest clocks used pendulums to keep time. A pendulum is a long rod or weight on a string that swings back and forth. In 1583, the Italian physicist Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) discovered that a pendulum of a certain length always took the same amount of time to swing back and forth, no matter how heavy it was or how much it swung. He discovered this by observing a huge lamp swinging on a chain from the ceiling of the cathedral in Pisa, Italy, and using its pulse to time it as it moved back and forth. In a clock, the role of the pendulum is to regulate the speed of the gears (interlocking wheels with teeth cut into the edges). The gears count the number of seconds that pass and convert them into minutes and hours, which are displayed on the hands that go around the clock face. In other words, the gears of a pendulum clock are really just counting elephants.

The open case of a large grandfather clock showing the pendulum swinging inside.

The power of the pendulum: this swinging rod (with a weight at the bottom) is what keeps the time in a grandfather clock. This is one of the great discoveries we owe to Galileo.

You can make a pendulum clock by attaching a weight to a piece of string. If the string is about 25 cm long, the pendulum will swing back and forth about once a second. Shorter strings will swing faster and longer strings will swing slower. The problem with a clock like this is that the pendulum keeps stopping. Air resistance and friction will soon deplete its energy and bring it to a halt. That's why pendulum clocks are equipped with springs. Once a day or so, you wind up a spring inside the clock to store potential energy that will keep the pendulum going for the next 24 hours. As the spring unwinds, it powers the clock's gears. Through a balance mechanism called an escapement, the pendulum forces the gears to turn at a precise rate - and that's how the gears keep time. A pocket watch is obviously too small to have a pendulum inside, so it uses a different mechanism. So it uses a different mechanism. Instead of a pendulum, it has a pendulum that turns first one way and then the other, controlled by a much smaller escapement than a pendulum clock.

Want to discover our other Vintage Pocket Watch ? Check out our collection of Wooden Pocket Watch or Steampunk Pocket Watch.

How a Quartz Pocket Watch works

The problem with ordinary mechanical pendulum clocks and pocket watches is that you have to remember to wind them all the time. If you forget, they stop - and you have no idea what time it is. Another difficulty with pendulum clocks is that they depend on the force of gravity, which varies trės slightly from place to place; this means that a pendulum clock tells the time differently at high altitudes and at sea level! Pendulums also change in length when the temperature changes, expanding slightly on warm days and contracting on cold days, again making them less accurate. Quartz gouset watches solve all these problems. They are battery operated, and because they use so little electricity, the battery can often last several years before you need to replace it. They are also much more accurate than pendulum clocks. Quartz watches work in a very different way than ordinary mechanical pendulum clocks and pocket watches. They still have gears inside to count the seconds, minutes and hours and sweep the hands across the dial. But the gears are regulated by a tiny quartz crystal instead of a moving pendulum or balance wheel. Gravity doesn't come into play at all, so a quartz clock tells the time just as well when you're climbing Everest as when you're at sea.

Why do Quartz Pocket Watch gain or lose time ?

If quartz is so amazing, you may wonder why a quartz watch doesn't keep time with absolute precision forever. Why does it still gain or lose seconds here and there? The answer is that quartz vibrates at a slightly different frequency at different temperatures and pressures, so its timekeeping ability is affected to a minute degree by the heating, cooling and constant change in the world around us. In theory, if you keep a watch on your wrist all the time (which is at a more or less constant temperature), it will keep time better than if you take it off and put it on (which causes a pretty dramatic temperature change each time). But even if the quartz crystal could vibrate at a perfectly constant frequency, the way it is mounted in its circuit, tiny imperfections in the gearing, friction, etc. can also introduce tiny errors in the timekeeping. All of these effects are enough to introduce an inaccuracy of up to one second per day in typical quartz clocks and watches (remember that a second lost one day can be made up for by a second gained the next day, so the overall accuracy can be as much as a few seconds per month).