HISTORY: The Quartz Crisis

THE QUARTZ CRISIS

SEIKO RELEASED THE FIRST QUARTZ WATCH IN 1969, REVOLUTIONISING A PRIMARILY EUROCENTRIC MARKET. THIS PIVOTAL EVENT CAME TO CHANGE THE WATCHMAKING INDUSTRY IN A DRASTIC AND LASTING WAY, MANAGING TO WIPE OUT SEVERAL CENTURIES OF SWISS TRADITION IN JUST A FEW YEARS.

Quartz

A quartz watch is estimated to lose less than one minute per year (compared to -4/+6 seconds per day for a chronometer-certified mechanical watch).

Calibre 35SQ

Atsunami called quartz

The word “quartz” often comes with negative connotations, and for good reason. The advent of the first quartz watches resulted in the demise of many manufacturers, who failed to react quickly enough to the new phenomenon. For those lucky enough to survive, the enthusiasm for savoir-faire and mechanical watchmaking made quartz nothing more than a curiosity to the most conservative watch connoisseurs. However, the craze for this technological feat was real and still largely continues today...

Technology offering unparalleled precision

The first quartz watch to be sold on the market was the Seiko Quartz Astron-35SQ. With a selling price of ¥450,000 ($12,500) –the price of a new car at the time–, the new piece by Seiko was in fact very expensive at the time of its release in 1969, meaning that the price was not the incentive it is today. It was therefore necessary to make it appealing for some other reason. How do these movements work? A battery, which can last for several years, electrifies a small quartz crystal to create vibrations at an amazing rate: more than 32,000 times

per second. A circuit then counts these vibrations to create regular electronic impulses of one per second that trigger movement in the hands of the watch. A quartz watch is estimated to lose less than one minute per year (compared to -4/+6 seconds per day for a chronometercertifi ed mechanical watch). In view of such outstanding performance, the quartz movement could only have good years ahead of it, an undoubtedly worrying fact for centuries-old manufacturers that had no hopes of achieving such results.

A storm in the Swiss watchmaking world

In 1929, the stock market crashed in the United States, giving rise to the biggest economic crisis of the 20th century. Far from being exclusive to the American continent, the Great Depression hit Europe head-on and contributed to the ruin of many family-run businesses, particularly in the Swiss watchmaking industry. Th is crisis led manufacturers of ébauches (unfi nished, unassembled movements) and other watch parts to group together in 1931 in a holding company, ASUAG, to attempt to cope with this global economic upheaval. Quartz movements hit the market a few decades later, once again causing a major crisis in the Swiss watch industry, an event that would be called the «quartz crisis». Faced with competition from the Japanese, the Swiss sought to develop a quartz movement, the Beta 21 (in reference to the 21 Swiss watch companies that came together to produce it). However, it was less effi cient than the movement developed by Seiko, proving not to be enough to save Swiss watchmaking, whose world market share dropped from 50% to just 5%. Consequently, the Swiss went from being the main player to a mere bystander. Th e crisis had major economic consequences that included the closing of many watchmaking companies (there were 1,600 active in Switzerland at the time versus barely 600 today) as well as a sharp drop in the number of employees in the industry (70,000 in 1960 compared to 30,000 in 1980). And it was not until the Lebaneseborn Swiss businessman Nicolas Hayek arrived on the scene that the Swiss watch market was able to make a comeback with a production more suited to new demands, i.e., a watch meeting the requirements imposed by the Japanese market, which meant a quality timepiece that was quick to manufacture at a reduced cost. Th is watch, the Swatch, literally saved the Swiss industry from the certain collapse, allowing it to survive, not without diffi culty, the quartz crisis.

Th e quartz crisis, a myth?

While most historians agree that the arrival of quartz watches on the market was responsible for the crisis of the Swiss watch industry in the 1970s, some economists and historians do not share this theory. Th is is the case of Pierre-Yves Donzé, a researcher at Osaka University, who explains in an article in the Swiss daily Le Temps that Japanese manufacturers slowly transitioned to quartz watches. According to him, “Th e quartz revolution took place at Seiko when Switzerland was already deep in crisis”. Th e origin of the crisis must therefore be sought

Seiko Quartz Astron 35SQ

Th e world’s fi rst mass production quartz watch was the Seiko Quartz Astron, released on December 25, 1969. Rather than the CMOS IC that became the standard for later quartz movements, its Caliber 35SQ movement adopted a hybrid IC made by fi x-mounting 76 transistors and 29 capacitors on a ceramic substrate. 8192Hz (later 16,384Hz). 8 jewels. 18KYG (diameter 35 mm). 450,000 yen at time of release.

1969 Quartz Astron 50th Anniversary Limited Edition Model 18K Gold SBXD002

A limited edition that followed the design of the fi rst-generation Seiko Quartz Astron. Its Caliber 3X22 movement was signifi cantly smaller and included a super smart sensor for automatic time adjustment, a high-speed time zone adjustment feature that changed to the local time zone with a simple button operation, and other advanced functions. GPS solar quartz. 18KYG (diameter 40.9 mm). Water resistance 10 bar. Limited production of 50 watches worldwide.

elsewhere than in the advent of electronically powered movements. For Pierre-Yves Donzé, the true cause lies in Switzerland’s lack of reaction to changes encountered in the production systems of mechanical timepieces since the 1960s. Th e post-war years were marked by the mass production of quality watches from Japan, with the Swiss watch industry being unable to adapt to this new demand. For the historian, this is what really caused Swiss watchmaking to lose its monopoly during the 1960s and 70s.

Coming out of the crisis and returning to knowhow

Following the quartz crisis, Swiss watchmakers once again focused on craft smanship, managing to position the timepiece as a luxury item combining tradition and modernity. Th is positioning makes the “Swiss made” label a symbol of prestige not attainable by most. Today, the Swiss watch industry no longer dominates in terms of market share, but it remains on top in terms of market value.