Top 6 Frequently Asked Questions About Luxury Watches
Want to learn more about watches? We get lots of emails asking us about luxury watches. Instead of individually responding to each email, we’ve decided to post all our FAQs here for your convenience.
1) Which watch brands are considered to be “luxury” watches?
There are dozens of luxury watch brands in the world today. However, luxury watches can more accurately be separated into different levels of luxury, including “quasi luxury”, “entry-level luxury”, and “high-end luxury”. Here’s how some of the world’s most popular watch brands rank on such a list:
Quasi luxury
Popular quasi luxury brands include Gucci, Movado, Raymond Weil, Oris, Fortis, and Junghans.
Entry-level luxury
Popular entry-level luxury watches include Baume & Mercier, Hermes, TAG Heuer, Doxa, Todor, and Montblanc.
Luxury
Popular luxury watches include Omega, Bvlgari, Breitling, Chronoswiss, Bremont, and IWC.
High-end luxury
Popular high-end luxury watches include Zenith, Hublot, Cartier, Chopard, Rolex, Breguet, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Panerai, and Ulysse Nardin.
Ultra luxury
Popular ultra-luxury watches include Audemars Pigeut, Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, Richard Mille, MB&F, A. Lange & Söhne, and Piaget.
These rankings are not official classifications by any means. However, they provide a basic overview of how brands are perceived by the watch community.
2) What’s the difference between quartz and mechanical watches?
There are two main categories of watch movements: quartz and mechanical. Each movement has its own unique advantages.
First, a quartz movement keeps track of time using the vibrations of a quartz crystal combined with an electronic counter. They’re very accurate and durable. If you buy a cheap digital or analog watch, it will most likely feature a quartz crystal. However, there are some higher-end watches that also use quartz movements.
Mechanical movement watches, on the other hand, are powered and regulated by mechanical mechanisms, driven by a spring. The mechanisms inside the watch make the “tick-tick-tick” sound which many of us associate with watches.
In general, mechanical movement watches are considered “more interesting”, but they also come with a number of disadvantages. They’re not nearly as durable or accurate as quartz watches. A good quartz watch will be accurate to within 2 seconds per month, while a very good mechanical watch will lose approximately 5 seconds each day.
Mechanical watches also have a unique “self-charging” mechanism. When worn, the mechanical rotor of the watch stores the kinetic energy of your wrist. This is why they’re also known as “automatic” watches. It’s also why mechanical watches will die if you don’t wear them for a few days.
3) Are there more than just quartz and mechanical watches?
Yes. There are several other types of watch movements which cannot be classified as either quartz or mechanical movements.
Alternative watch movement types include mecha-quartz, kinetic/auto-quartz, electric watches (like Accutrons), and Spring Drive.
4) What are sweep seconds?
In the early days of watchmaking, watches featured a “subdial” which would count seconds. This subdial was smaller than the main hour/minute dial and typically looked like this:
As watchmaking technology advanced, watchmakers realized they could place the second dial on the larger dial, allowing the second hand to “sweep” across the face of the clock every minute. That’s where the term “sweep seconds” comes from. Instead of using “subdial seconds”, most watches began to use “sweep seconds.” This second hand offered a smooth sweeping motion.
Then quartz movements were invented, and instead of having a smoothly flowing second hand, watchmakers implemented a “jumping second hand” to save battery life.
5) How do I choose the right watch crystal?
Watch crystals should not be confused with quartz crystals. Watch crystals are the protective covering over the face of your watch. There are three popular types of crystals:
-Acrylic glass: Difficult to break but easy to scratch, this polycarbonate plastic is commonly seen on older “vintage” watches.
-Sapphire: Sapphire is the most commonly-used crystal among luxury watchmakers. It’s very scratch-resistant and is difficult to shatter (although when pressured, it will crack instead of flexing).
-Mineral crystal: Mineral crystal is not very scratch-resistant and scratches are difficult to repair. However, mineral crystal is significantly cheaper than sapphire and is the popular option for low to mid-range watches.
6) Which time should I use when setting my watch?
Setting your watch? Keeping track of time? Want to make sure your watch is accurate? Time.is is widely accepted as the most accurate timekeeping website, and it tells you the exact local time in your area.
