Mechanical watches are related to centuries-old tradition, elegance and luxury. In today’s post-modern society where we are confronted with wearable technology benefits technology like the wise watches, this distinction comes as the correct value of this dinosaur technology.
Chronometers date back to the 1500s using the very first pocket watch, the Nuremberg Egg becoming invented by Peter Henlein. However, there are debates to this claim which state that it was a 19th century invention. Nonetheless, there’s history tied to wind-up timepieces.
Swiss watchmakers dominated the timekeeping business until the mid 1970s when the Japanese introduced highly precise quartz watches that were mass-produced at low-cost. By the early 1980s Switzerland was only producing ten % from the timepieces inside the planet. Two-thirds of watchmaking jobs within the nation also disappeared. This was aptly referred to as the Quartz Crisis within the market.
Mechanical wristwatches did make a comeback inside the late 1990s following the successful introduction of chronometers that utilized the quartz design and style. They had been marketed on the worth of fashion rather than on the accuracy of telling time. The market banked on this achievement to re-introduce the old technology from the automatic chronometers. At which time they have been presented as carefully crafted (and some even handcrafted) luxury products linked to tradition dating back towards the 1500s. This was a re-definition of its value as they had been historically perceived as precise metronomes.
What helped the resurgence of those luxury products was the discovery that they have been highly valued by collectors who strongly guarded tradition. When the market was really fragile and was believed to collapse, these collectors began getting the wristwatches at auctions at record prices. This gave the message that there was underlying value for the ancient technology. In yet another instance, an old Zenith employee hid all the moulds needed to produce the horologes when other businesses were disposing or scrapping theirs. These enthusiasts and the old employee are now noticed in history because the guardians of tradition.
It was also necessary in the industry’s revival to redefine the competition. It wasn’t any longer, at this point, competing with quartz, but with horologes in its own league – which is the high-end market.
This really is the identical pattern that we have seen with the resurgence from the vinyl records or with fountain pens. Record collectors who valued them have facilitated their comeback and redefined competition for these collectibles aside from the downloadable music that this society now enjoys.