Was the Quartz era all bad from a watch collectors perspective?

Many watch collectors I know consider the Quartz era to be the dark ages of watchmaking… Roughly speaking, early1970’s to the early1990’s.

“Nothing interesting to see, only Quartz movements and funny looking pieces”…

Ten-fifteen years ago, if someone would have asked me, I would have fully agreed in this view…

Today I not sure… Still, the Quartz era is not my favourite period and in my collection there are very few pieces, if any, which were actually made in the 1980’s.

When I think of a typical 1980’s watch, I visualise a bi-metal, thin, Quartz movement watch – like for example the Jaeger-LeCoultre Albatross:

The Albatross emerged from the Sport Chic watches which became very popular in the mid-late 1970’s – watches like the Nautilus, the Royal Oak, the Laureato and the Overseas, to mention a few (yes, there were many more).

What is a bit surprising to see is that the interest for this kind of watches only grow stronger during the past decade.

Back in the 70’s and 80’s almost all major brands had one or several watches in this category… And now, 40 – 50 years later, again many brands have them…

The Nautilus, the Royal Oak, the Laureato, the Overseas and the Odysseus from current collections:

The Quartz movements are gone and they are not very thin any more… But the design of the first four in this line-up originates from the beginning of the Quartz era!

Not the Odysseus which is the odd one out here as it was released only last year… A fun note, Jaeger-LeCoultre used to have watches called Nautilus and Odysseus long before these models above even existed…!

Maybe you think this is the only part that survived from this era and that some of these didn’t even start off as Quartz watches?

Well, lately – I have noticed an increased number of “tank” watches on social media – not the original rectangular Art Deco models from the early 19-hundred, but later versions. Many of which the model originates from the beginning of the 20th century but the watches seen now are mostly from the last quarter of the previous century…

Watches looking similar to these – as a brain exercise I removed the logo from the dials on the next T.W.O scans…

Can you tell the brand? Or the year?

If your Instagram feed looks anything like mine, you see a lot of watches looking like these… I bet many of the watches I noticed do not only look like these, they are from the same time these scans were new!

If you guessed the Jaeger-LeCoultre Vouge collection from 1982, then you are correct! And yes, all of them are fitted with Quartz movements…

There even were Quartz Reverso models – notice the “Q” on the dial and T.W.O lines instead of three above and below the dial.

One detail I previously overlooked in this scan above and the next below, is the none Quartz movement, the Calibre 916! Yes, the E 875 Memovox Speed beat! These scans are from different catalogues, covering the same year – 1982! I was not aware that Jaeger-LeCoultre had the E 875 in the catalogue for that long…

Ironically, I had these catalogues for many years but never looked properly at them as they were from the 1980’s…

Both the Memovox and the Albatross were presented as “Sportliche uhren” – sporty watches – Sport Chic…

From a technical point of view, there was a lot of good things that came to light with the Quartz movement and all the research around that development – but I don’t think many of the top brands will try to re-introduce Quartz movements into their watches…

Frankly, I hope not to see another Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Quartz LED to be born!

But I suspect that many of the models and the design elements from the Quartz era will comeback… Maybe even sooner than we think!

There are already several new watches inspired by the Girard-Perregaux LED Casquette on the market!

Photo credit: the GP chronicles – a page you should visit to learn more about Girard-Perregaux watches!

So, was the Quartz era all bad from a watch collectors perspective? – I don’t think so! Yes, a lot of brands merged or disappeared, the watch industry took a big hit and had to adjust to survive…

But from a watch collectors perspective there are still many interesting watches to be discovered! Stay tuned for more…