‘Why on earth would you buy a $3500 watch?’

I get that a lot. From relatives, from friends, and even on a few occasions, from strangers. Purchasing expensive and unique timepieces are one of those things that some people will never get. That’s perfectly fine by me, because if the rest of the world was wearing Brietlings, Rolexes, Omegas, or Patek Philippes, then I probably wouldn’t have the luxury of writing this post.

timepieces

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that cheap watch you bought at Walmart or that Mickey Mouse timepiece you found in a box of cereal. For the price of a brand new Rolex, you can buy over a hundred plastic Timex watches. Does a Rolex keep better time than a Timex? Goodness, no.

What everybody wants to know is what’s wrong with their $50 Timex watch. It keeps track of time fine. It’s waterproof. Hey, there’s even a spiffy Indiglo function.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that cheap watch you bought at Walmart or that Mickey Mouse timepiece you found in a box of cereal. For the price of a brand new Rolex, you can buy over a hundred plastic Timex watches. Does a Rolex keep better time than a Timex? Goodness, no. A Timex is actually much more accurate than the most well made Rolex watches — which are often off by at least a handful of seconds a day.

Bet that took you by surprise.

Well, I’m not just going to just tell you why you should invest in an classy (though often expensive) mechanical timepiece. I’m going to show you.

The Omega Aqua Terra was my first real love and first expensive timepiece. She broke my heart and was stolen from my car during the summer of 2006, but was promptly — though expensively — replaced by my insurance company within weeks. The watch is subtle, yet powerful and a classic beauty. Appropriate for all occasions and nearly everything I wear, it’s a watch that isn’t met with too many incredulous stares, but deserves a second look.

The well known Invicta 9937 is an hommage (less eloquently, a copy) of the legendary Rolex Submariner/Sea Dweller. Although its design is almost a direct replica of the more expensive Rolex, the watch holds its ground, a testament to its rugged Swiss movement (an ETA 2824).

More hefty, less expensive, and less formal than my Omega, this watch has quickly become my standard day-to-day. A watch I can wear wherever and whenever, especially when I’m a bit timid of sporting the overly expensive Omega.

My love for mechanical watches was probably fueled by my father’s collection, which contains among other timepieces, a Rolex Datejust given to him by my grandmother…in 1963! Forty years later and after some restoration by Rolex, the watch is beating steadily and looks just as beautiful as ever.

Most watches mass produced by Timex, Seiko, Casio, or whatever, are composed of electronic gizmos. These watches have a teeny quartz crystal under the casing which resonates or beats at a very distinct and very fast frequency. In turn, this frequency is used by the electronic mainboard to count the seconds, the minutes, and eventually the hours.

So from the frantic beating of the quartz, you get the steady tick, tick, tick of your watch every second.

Here’s the beauty of some of the timepieces you might see made by Rolex or Omega: there’s not a single electronic component to be found. No quartz crystals vibrating at a billion beats per second. No batteries pulsing energy through the mass of electronic transistors, wires, and boards. Nada. Zip. Zero.

No, these watches are purely mechanical. Using nothing but teensy-weensy gears, springs, screws, rotors, and pallets, these watches are counting the very seconds of your day. Accurately and precisely. Now doesn’t that blow your fucking mind?

The concept is simple: The mechanical watch uses the energy from a wound spring and keeps track of time through the highly regulated release of that energy through a set of gears and an escapement. The escapement is the engine of the movement and like the quartz crystal, beats or swings at a very precise rate.

Automatic watches, which encompasses nearly all modern mechanical watches, are powered by a rotor or weight that swings with the motion of your wrist as you’re going through your mundane day-to-day routines. And here lies another difference between an automatic/mechanical watch like a Rolex and a quartz watch like a Timex: Automatic watches will only keep ticking if you wear them. Their power supply quickly depletes in one or two days, and so it’s not uncommon to have to rewind and resync your watch with the computer clock after having left it inert on your desk for the weekend.

Inconvenient? Perhaps. But that’s the beauty of a mechanical watch. It’s not some cold robotic clunker. It’s a watch with a heart that literally depends on your existance to continue beating.

What heart? Take a look at the below animation of a typical escapement of a watch.

The spinny oscillating thing is called the balance wheel and is considered to be the heart of the watch. The wheel spins left 280 degrees (one beat), and then right 280 degrees (another beat). These periodic beats are then transferred to other gears and components which are used to keep time forever ticking.

How often does it beat? About 28,800 beats per hour. That little wheel is swinging to and fro 28,800 times an hour. And let’s not forget that through all this time and through all this elaborate beating, the watch has to deal with changes in temperature, changes in position, inertial forces applied by the wearer, shock, and what not.

Should a pallet (the pink nibs) fail to engage properly on only one out of 1,000 cycles, the error in time-keeping would amount to hours per day. It’s amazing that the best mechanical watches are configured to lose or gain up to 2-5 seconds in even the most extreme conditions.

So now I hope you can understand my fascination with mechanical watches. In today’s cold and apathetic world fueled by things like instant messenging, mass produced electronics, downtown hustle and bustle, and of course the ubiquitous chains of fast food restaurants, we’re often left feeling tired and breathless.

A mechanical watch is a historical, cultural, and mechanical marvel — standing as one of mankind’s most ingenious and calculated inventions. It’s a watch that possesses a soul and a beating heart. It’s a constant companion through life and rewards the attention and energy you provide by keeping track of that elusive maiden known as Time.

We tend to forget and neglect things that are independent of our attention. This explains why we don’t think of toasters, gluesticks, or Lays Potato Chips as being our constant companions in life.

Besides, if you think your best friend in life is a toaster, you’ve got bigger issues than choosing between a Rolex or an Omega. You freak.