But as I said it is controversial and just not for me
I've been involved with watch collectors about 15 years and haven't noticed any arguing about quartz vs. mechanical. I see people on enthusiast watch sites talking about both kinds. I probably take a harder line in my personal collection than most other people do but I'm softening a little bit with time. I will say that I think there are a higher number of interesting mechanical watches than there are interesting quartz but I've owned and still own a number of quartz watches that are interesting to me.
Part of what I like about watches is the mechanical movement that is essentially "living" on your wrist. Its little heart beats, the gears turn and the hands move. And they work very well. And they are very accurate, for a mechanical device that works under varied conditions. Its only in comparison with quartz that we think they are inaccurate. COSC standards for certified chronometer are that a watch can be up to 6 seconds fast per 24 hour period or 4 seconds slow. For my wear it would take a month before I would notice the watch was off. But most watch enthusiasts don't wear a watch for more than a few days, just like a lot of knife enthusiasts don't carry a knife for more than a few days before they switch to something else. I may like to know how accurate my watches are, but in practice it does not matter a bit.
In my 15 years I've never had a mechanical watch serviced, but if I wear a watch 5 days out of every 2 months it isn't getting much wear, and I probably won't own it more than 5 years either. I do have an old Rolex that I need to have serviced so I can wear it or sell it. I'm downsizing my collection somewhat and have to pick out a few for long term ownership. A couple of those are Seiko and I don't know of anybody that worries about servicing a Seiko.
I picked a more disciplined wear pattern than most enthusiasts. Most seem to pick a watch to wear in the morning depending on how they feel. I wanted all of my watches to get worn equal amounts and I worried about wear by frequently setting the time so I decided to set and put on a watch on Monday morning and then wear it until Friday night. Next Monday I picked another one and so on. On weekends I'm working in my garage or yard, working on cars, riding my bike, whatever and I don't wear a nice mechanical watch for this. So if I try to wear a mechanical watch for weekends I usually don't wear it long enough during the day to maintain its power reserve. So I picked some quartz watches for "grab and go" wear. That way the quartz watches would be set and running when I get cleaned up and I'm ready to grab the watch and go out at night.
Also my schedule is more erratic on weekends so I have the need during weekend nights to need to know the time. This lead me to buy my first navy seals Luminox years ago. It was well worn but ran and was cheap so I bought it. Its strap was bad so I put it on a cheap NATO strap. It is a real "tool watch" since I wear it to tell time and not for any aesthetic or collector interest. Now I have 2 other Luminox that I use for nicer weekend wear. I wore one of them today when I went to my family Christmas dinner, and back home now I'm wearing the navy seals diver beater. I also had a pretty nice Citizen eco-drive quartz that I used for weekend wear but I recently sold it in my downsizing.
Right now my watch group for weekday rotation has 2 Seiko divers with 6R15 automatic mechanical movements, 2 Steinhart divers with ETA 2824 and 2892 automatic mechanical movements, and a Deep Blue watch with Miyota 9015 automatic mechanical movement. My weekend watch group contains the 3 Luminox quartz. I'm slowly in the process of downsizing but a part of this is kind of like selling one or two but buying one. I've done the same thing with watch collecting.
apologies! as we are getting off track as to what watch are you wearing is the subject.
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