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I’ve learned a good amount about watches since I started writing about them for Insider Picks.
There’s a wealth of watch knowledge out there to attain, and while I’ve still only scratched the surface of what there is to know, I’ve been doing my best to be a student of the industry.
One of the most fascinating aspects of watches is the problems they present to anyone attempting to design them. You’re attempting to create a mechanism small enough to fit on your wrist, but capable of continuously keeping time. How do you power it? Today, it’s easy to say "throw a battery in it or something" and walk away from the issue, but back in the day, this was a problem that people would sit with and try to solve. How do we get those gears to turn?
Hoping to enlighten myself a bit on how exactly watches do what they do, I enlisted the help of Chaim Posen, marketing director at Jomashop, and asked him to walk me through the different types of watch movements and explain how and why they work.
For anyone interested in learning more about the timepiece that might be sitting on your wrist right now, you can see Posen’s explanations below, along with a few examples of watches that employ each type of movement. This is literally an explainer on what makes your watch tick.
If you're considering dropping big money on a luxury watch, as with any other major purchase, be sure to compare prices and do some research first. While all of Jomashop's watches are guaranteed to be 100% authentic, they do not come with a manufacturers warranty. If you have any concerns at all, you can view Jomashop's full warranty policy here.
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The two basic types of movements
The movement is what powers the watch. There are two basic types of watch movements: Mechanical (known predominantly as "automatic") and Quartz. Automatic movements do not have batteries, rather they are mechanically powered by your wrist movement. Watch collectors prefer mechanical movements because of their craftsmanship, and because, with proper care, they tend to have much longer life spans.
Most luxury watches (like the ones pictured) feature automatic movements, and many times it is the complication of the automatic movement that makes some of these watch brands sell for so high.
Vacheron Constantin Patrimony Traditionnelle, $31,995. (Left)
Patek Philippe Complications Chronograph, $56,995. (Right)
Types of mechanical movements
Within the mechanical family, there are two primary types of movement: Automatic (powered by hand movement) and Hand-Wind (requires a manual wind). Hand-wind is pretty self-explanatory, while automatic watches use a weighted rotor to harness energy with every movement of your wrist, and can be referred to as "self-winding."
This popular IWC Portuguese (pictured left) features an in-house movement by IWC with a 44-hour power reserve, while this Omega Limited Edition 50th Anniversary Speedmaster Moonwatch is also quite popular and features a hand-wind mechanical movement
IWC Portuguese Chronograph, $5,495. (Left)
Omega 50th Anniversary Edition Speedmaster Moonwatch, $3,445. (Right)
The most common type of quartz movement
Most quartz movements are simply powered by a battery, with brands like Seiko and Fossil on the lower end and TAG Heuer (Aqua Racer Series) or Breitling (Colt Quartz) on the higher end.
This is appealing because they take little upkeep (other than replacing a battery every once in a while) to maintain, but they are less desirable to collectors because they lack some of the ingenuity and craftsmanship of their mechanical counterparts.
Seiko Chronograph, $99.99. (Left)
Tag Heuer Formula 1, $695. (Right)
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