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Mark Twain’s Quest to Bring Affordable Watches to the Masses

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Mark Twain’s Quest to Bring Affordable Watches to the Masses

#41

Post by vinay427 »

craigsmansion wrote: post #28
digikazi wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very true. My two quartz watches, a Seiko and a Timex are both reasonably cheap, accurate and save for the odd battery change maintenance-free. My mechanical Seiko on the other hand.... it's beautiful but it seems to have a mind of its own. In the 8 months that I had it it started gaining about 5min a week. I understand automatics do gain or lose a couple of minutes a week, but even so. After being spoiled by…

Just give them a couple of decades. Chances are your quartz watches will no longer work, whereas your mechanical watch will happily tick along, and can still be repaired if it ever breaks down. But 42 seconds a day is quite a lot. You could try to have it regulated (or do it yourself if you're feeling adventurous).

All of my sub-$30 digital quartz watches are still working and are within a few seconds of the current time around 10 years after being purchased and set. A mechanical watch would likely need much more maintenance in that period, perhaps even to keep it running.

I still have an automatic mechanical watch, for what it's worth, and in theory it should last longer when maintained but will likely cost far more every year than one of my digital quartz watches would cost to replace even every few years.

Re: Mark Twain’s Quest to Bring Affordable Watches to the Masses

#42

Post by aidenn0 »

ctordtor wrote: post #21
aidenn0 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In on the fence with my warby parker glasses. They seem to scratch far easier than my previous lenses. After 18 months I can't wear them in the dark anymore as they are so scratched that off axis light causes terrible glare. On the other hand, I can buy new glasses five times as often, and I usually will break or lose my glasses due to misfortune within 7 years, so it's still cheaper.

I tend to be ridiculously un-careful with my specs except with how I clean them, my current glasses are regular plastic with no coatings and they haven't scratched yet. I wash them under warm water with dish detergent and my fingers and them hit them with compressed air or a micro fiber cloth to dry. I wonder how you are cleaning yours as my current pair are over a year old and I can't find a single scratch.

I clean the same way, but dry with a lint free cotton cloth. My lenses have AR coating though

Re: Mark Twain’s Quest to Bring Affordable Watches to the Masses

#43

Post by ljf »

craigsmansion wrote: post #28
digikazi wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very true. My two quartz watches, a Seiko and a Timex are both reasonably cheap, accurate and save for the odd battery change maintenance-free. My mechanical Seiko on the other hand.... it's beautiful but it seems to have a mind of its own. In the 8 months that I had it it started gaining about 5min a week. I understand automatics do gain or lose a couple of minutes a week, but even so. After being spoiled by…

Just give them a couple of decades. Chances are your quartz watches will no longer work, whereas your mechanical watch will happily tick along, and can still be repaired if it ever breaks down. But 42 seconds a day is quite a lot. You could try to have it regulated (or do it yourself if you're feeling adventurous).

Not sure I'd buy that - my old quartz from my childhood (analogue and digital) still work excellently, and keep great time, and only need a battery replacing every 10 years or so.

My Chinese automatic lost time after the first year and wasn't worth repairing. My vintage seiko 5 recently had a service/repair - which cost £120 - and yes it works pretty well now, but they replaced the whole automatic innards - just the face/dial/hands and body/strap remain. And it still loses a couple of minutes a week. Unless I take it of for a few days and it stops completely.

I love it though and it makes me very happy to wear it - and it looks and feels great. But I wear a Xiaomi mi band on my other wrist for accurate timekeeping (when I need to be sure to make the train or something).

Re: Mark Twain’s Quest to Bring Affordable Watches to the Masses

#45

Post by craigsmansion »

vinay427 wrote: post #41
craigsmansion wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just give them a couple of decades. Chances are your quartz watches will no longer work, whereas your mechanical watch will happily tick along, and can still be repaired if it ever breaks down. But 42 seconds a day is quite a lot. You could try to have it regulated (or do it yourself if you're feeling adventurous).

All of my sub-$30 digital quartz watches are still working and are within a few seconds of the current time around 10 years after being purchased and set. A mechanical watch would likely need much more maintenance in that period, perhaps even to keep it running. I still have an automatic mechanical watch, for what it's worth, and in theory it should last longer when maintained but will likely cost far more every year…

In general quartz watches seem to have a lifetime of 20-30 years.

Mechanical watches without factory defects should easily run 10 years without maintenance, but it's advisable to have them serviced every few years.

But yes, even with their longevity, it's a given that replacing a cheap quartz every few years would probably still be cheaper than a mechanical watch.

Re: Mark Twain’s Quest to Bring Affordable Watches to the Masses

#46

Post by Phillipharryt »

hristov wrote: post #24

Everyone that wants to get into tech investing should read about Mark Twains misadventures in investing. Current stories about tech investing and investing in general are greatly affected by survivor bias. If you are not a successful investor you do not become famous your story does not get told, so many more people get to make the same mistakes you did. Mark Twain on the other hand was famous for a completely differ…

The fantastic coincidence being the man who created the typesetting machine he invested in, had the last name Paige. I love aptonyms.

And here's an interesting read if you want to follow up about the machine.

http://www.twainquotes.com/paige.html

Re: Mark Twain’s Quest to Bring Affordable Watches to the Masses

#47

Post by grawprog »

lvturner wrote: post #39
willis936 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see watches as very functional compared to smartphones. Mechanical movements have a lot of charm though.

I can check my watch without having to pull my phone out my pocket, depending on what you are doing that can make a huge difference. Practicality and functionality mean different things to do different people.

I have to say, last time I had a phone break, the first thing I dug out was my watch. You really notice a distinct lack of visible clocks these days when your phone dies and you don't have a watch and people these days seem to look at you like there's something wrong with you if you ask them the time.

Re: Mark Twain’s Quest to Bring Affordable Watches to the Masses

#48

Post by DHPersonal »

It’s interesting that the brand became Timex, because I came to the same conclusion as Mark Twain: Timex watches have all the features I want but aren’t priced extremely high. I want a timekeeping device, not a fashion statement, and Timex watched excel at that.

Re: Mark Twain’s Quest to Bring Affordable Watches to the Masses

#49

Post by phubbard »

digikazi wrote: post #26
vinay427 wrote: post #19

Thanks to better technology, quartz watches are now cheaper, easier to maintain, almost always more accurate, and often more robust to shocks and damage. Even the cheapest quartz watches are often more accurate than a $500 (or more) mechanical watch today, and more expensive digital watches are certainly more accurate than anything mechanical no matter the price. For functionality, then, it seems to me like affordabi…

That's very true. My two quartz watches, a Seiko and a Timex are both reasonably cheap, accurate and save for the odd battery change maintenance-free. My mechanical Seiko on the other hand.... it's beautiful but it seems to have a mind of its own. In the 8 months that I had it it started gaining about 5min a week. I understand automatics do gain or lose a couple of minutes a week, but even so. After being spoiled by…

That sounds like its been magnetized, which is easy to have happen and cheap to repair. You can DIY with a tool from eBay or amazon.

One of the big problems with mechanicals in this day and age is the prevalence of rare earth magnets in all sorts of places, e.g. the iPad has 11 of them, as do many bags. It’s quite easy to accidentally magnetize your watch, and amagnetic movements are still uncommon. (Omega, new ETA, some Rolex).

Re: Mark Twain’s Quest to Bring Affordable Watches to the Masses

#50

Post by digikazi »

dksbzmx wrote: post #40
digikazi wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very true. My two quartz watches, a Seiko and a Timex are both reasonably cheap, accurate and save for the odd battery change maintenance-free. My mechanical Seiko on the other hand.... it's beautiful but it seems to have a mind of its own. In the 8 months that I had it it started gaining about 5min a week. I understand automatics do gain or lose a couple of minutes a week, but even so. After being spoiled by…

A couple of minutes a week is excessive. Something’s wrong with the watch. When a solar flare finally hits us (or the Ruskies and the Yanks decide to nuke the world), however, your Seiko will still be a minute/week off. Your quartz watches will be week/week off.

Should that happen, if I am lucky/unlucky enough to survive a nuclear exchange, being on time to catch the train will probably be the least of my worries.

Having said that, I still have an Olympus Trip 35 in my collection and since it uses a selenium cell and a basic galvanometer to measure exposure, I should be okay to use it and document the aftermath as soon as the dust has settled!

Edited for clarity

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