Having nothing more useful to do at the moment, I did some research regarding the watch industry, since it’s the epitome of selling hype and illusions for inordinately overblown amounts of money.

They justify the prices by showing us the picture of an aging watchmaker patiently assembling the movement, and the idea combines low volume, skilled manual labor, and tradition.

So, let’s start with tradition. Which are the oldest watch companies currently in operation?

Blancpain, founded in 1735, is the oldest; however, it shows the typical pattern of being a dead brand revived with venture capital after the so called “quartz crisis” in the 1970s-1980s; currently owned by the Richemont group. The pattern consists of a venture capital finding and buying the dormant assets, and, sometimes, finding a grandson of the last owner and getting him to serve as a figurehead. In other cases, if the company was in a dire situation but alive, it is bought by either the Swatch group, or LVMH, the luxury goods conglomerate, or the Richemont group.

Let’s see the others. Vacheron Constantin, founded in 1755, continuously operating since, owned by the Richemont group.

A. Lange & Söhne, founded in 1845, dead, resurrected in 1990 by venture capital, owned by the Richemont group.

Zenith, founded in 1865, survived the Quartz crisis, author of the famous El Primero movement that Rolex outsourced from them to power the famous Daytona. They are the traditional in-town competitor of Jaeger-LeCoultre. Purchased in 1999 by LVMH.

Jaeger-LeCoultre, founded in 1833, famous for making not just watches, but also the movements for other famous watchmakers, owned by the Richemont group since 2000.

IWC Schaffhausen, originally founded in 1868, went under in the quartz crisis, owned by the Richemont group since 2000.

To make it shorter: Blancpain, Breguet, Certina, ETA, Glashütte Original, Hamilton, Harry Winston, Longines, Mido, Omega, Rado, and Tissot, all owned by the Swatch group, which rose to prominence in the 1980s and made a fortune on mass-produced fashion watches powered by quartz movements; they invested the money by buying up the bankrupt watchmaking companies.

A. Lange & Söhne, Cartier, IWC, Jaeger-LeCoultre, MontBlanc, Panerai, Piaget, Roger Dubuis, Vacheron Constantin, Van Cleef & Arpels belong to the Richemont group.

TAG Heuer, Hublot, Bulgari, Zenith, and Louis Vuitton are owned by LVMH.

One would be justified in asking if there are any actual watchmakers with continuous tradition that aren’t operated by the fashion brands and venture capital? They exist.

Patek Philippe, established in 1839, remains the last family-owned independent watch manufacturer in Geneva.

Rolex, founded in 1905 as a marketing brand that outsourced the actual watchmaking to others, invented some of the crucial mainstays of the watch industry, such as weather sealing and self-winding, not to forget the concept of wearing the watch on the wrist, on a stainless steel bracelet. They started as a marketing company and remained masters of hype, and regardless of that, they are actually one of the big innovators in the history of watchmaking, and the biggest, most recognizable name today.

Seiko, founded in 1881. Self owned, and the only vertically-integrated watchmaker in the world, alongside Rolex. They originally made mechanical watches, but produced the first commercial quartz watch in 1969.

Citizen, founded in 1918.

Casio, founded in 1946. as a calculator company, started making quartz watches since 1974.

So, wait a minute. If you want to wear a watch that has deep tradition of craftsmanship and innovation, your options are Seiko, Patek-Philippe and Rolex? Yup. Those three actually aren’t owned by hypemasters and have a serious tradition. One could argue that both Rolex and Patek are prime hypemasters themselves, and they wouldn’t be wrong.

But what about craftsmanship, assembling watches by hand, and so on? If you want that, your best choices would be A. Lange & Söhne, Patek-Philippe, and Grand Seiko. However, have in mind that most components today are produced by CNC grinders and similar technologies, and the manual part is usually only about the assembly. If someone makes millions of watches, of course it’s all mass produced, by definition.

So yes, the argument against the quartz movements, that they are mass-produced, is supremely silly, considering how Rolex, ETA, Sellita, Miyota and Seiko movements are all mass-produced, and almost nothing else is used anywhere. That’s fine, because a mechanical watch movement is a solved engineering problem, that doesn’t need to be solved again. As for quality, quartz movements are solid state, no moving parts other than what moves the indicators. They should outlive everything, and they usually don’t require servicing. They are also orders of magnitude more accurate. So, why are we being told that quartz is low-quality trash and mechanical is precious? Because of marketing. Billions of dollars depend on us believing that story, or nobody would buy a $10000 Rolex over a $200 Seiko. They convinced us that accuracy doesn’t matter, that accuracy is somehow a worthless feature since every quartz movement excels at it, and “we all know” quartz is crap. Well, pardon me, but in the 1970s and early 1980s I was taught to believe that accuracy is the central feature of a watch, and the expensive watches were expensive primarily because they were more accurate. That’s why the entire industry went nuts when quartz movements were more accurate. They thought it’s all over for them because there was no reason for the existence of mechanical watches any more. Even Rolex went nuts and started making quartz watches, and thought their mechanical watches were now trash. Everything else is just marketing hype that was slowly built since.

They spent 50 years and billions of dollars convincing us that the superior technology, that literally erased Swiss watchmaking, was cheap trash. If for some reason quartz watches weren’t that easy to mass-produce, the industry might have gone the other way and quartz would now be known as super expensive space tech, while mechanical watches were for the plebs.

To add insult to injury, most “traditional” brands that make mechanical watches today have almost no claim to a horological tradition if compared to someone like Seiko, who are generally assumed to be a newcomer to the industry, while in fact they are a seriously old brand with incredible legacy in watchmaking. Honestly, if you want a watch with a claim to tradition, craftsmanship and innovation, buy a Seiko. It’s not going to be a status symbol in a sense that it’s very expensive and few can afford it, but status symbols are a tricky thing anyway. People think Rolex is a status symbol, but sometimes it’s merely part of the uniform, something people think they need to have in order to be “taken seriously”, like a suit and a tie. Also, I’ve seen that the reaction to people who have a Rolex is usually negative – yes, a Rolex is recognized, but it’s usually recognized as something wannabes, snobs and people without taste wear to show how much money they have. On the other hand, I never saw a negative reaction to a Seiko, or, for that matter, IWC or Zenith. If they are perceived, and they seldom are, they are perceived as “a nice watch”. If a Rolex is perceived, it marks you as an asshole with a Rolex. So yes, it’s a status symbol alright, but not of the kind I find worth acquiring.