Citizen Quartz Watch

Many of the watches in our range are quartz watches … and since they are obviously not made of a pretty, swirly pink stone, who cares?! What does it matter?

Well, quartz watches are the most accurate, common form of manufacturing timekeeping pieces. Quartz can be used to keep time in both analog and digital watches – the quartz piece is really the backbone of the timekeeping function, and the way the information is displayed is just window dressing (however important it may be to the wearer!).

It is fascinating how it works – when you apply an electric field to a piece of quartz, the stone actually bends … this electric field comes from a battery, and in some specialized watches can even indirectly come from the wearer’s thermo-kinetic energy (body heat!) and be transferred inside the mechanism. Then when the electric field is removed, the quartz creates its own electric energy in returning back to its original shape. Handy, eh? It’s a give and take relationship with the old quartz.

Another important property of quartz as a timekeeping mechanism is that it doesn’t change shape as the temperature changes. So, for you, or whoever you are making a gift of the watch to, that means that basically they don’t have to replace the watch if they decide to go skiing in the winter, then lie on a tropical beach in the summer, then perhaps even do some exercise early on a frosty morning. Some materials would respond to these temperature extremes by warping, however quartz does not. This means that your watch keeps working, and doesn’t break at the first sign of you taking off its little thermally insulated jacket!

Quartz has now become such a common material to be used in watch making that often people don’t bother stating it in their description – it can be a little like saying “this fabulous watch has an hour, minute and second hand, as well as a band so you can wear it on your wrist!”. However, there ARE some watches that are made with cheaper or inferior materials – but if you are not sure, always remember you are free to contact us with any questions about our watches.