Hamilton Wristwatches: Quartz or Mechanical

What a complicated and misunderstood topic. Not long ago, I bought a dead Hamilton Chronograph for a little change. I thought about putting a new movement in it. At the ETA service site, I found a video on repairing the movement. It created a Sea Change in my world view. Here’s what happened.

Little Background

You could have called me a mechanical watch bigot a few months ago. That’s a fancy way of saying I refused to consider anything with a quartz movement a watch. They were simply electronic devices that looked like a watch. My bigotry actually reached such a peak, I enrolled in the watch school at the Texas Institute of Jewelry and Horology. I wanted to put an end to relying on watchmakers to clean, oil, adjust and, or repair my Hamilton Watch movements.

Heyward

About the middle of the first semester, it occurred to me that I didn’t have the personality or physical traits necessary for repairing watches. I didn’t like making parts, finding springs that flew out of the click holder, sharpening tweezers and so forth.

With vintage Hamilton watches, finding parts became difficult. I wound up buying movements and tearing them down for parts. That seemed like a major waste.

I experienced a personal dilemma. I had so many bad experiences with watchmakers from losing my watches, claiming movements needed repair when the watchmaker broke them and so forth. I decided to stay with 987 movements, buy parts as I could and look for movements that just needed cleaning and adjusting.

It took about three months and I had over a hundred parts. Additionally, when I listed a watch on eBay, buyers didn’t care if someone serviced the movement. The buyers just wanted to know that the watch worked.

I decided to sell movements the extra movements I had on hand. Bingo, I got a premium for 987 type movements. A couple of times, I got more for the movement that I did the watch.

As an experiment, I broke down a very good vintage Hamilton watch and sold the pieces separately. I sold the case, dial, buckle, a NOS crystal and the movement for about twice as much as I sold the same model watch two months before. I had great action on the complete watch and the one I parted out.

That didn’t prompt me to start buying quartz Hamilton watches. Instead, I began buying vintage tools, repairing and selling them. My K&D staking tools sold for multiples of what I got for watches.

An odd coincidence

A seller on eBay found a relatively new Jazzmaster with a Black Guilloche Dial in an abandoned warehouse. He listed it on eBay and saw little to no interest. It didn’t work. His listing allowed for making an offer, so I did. He accepted it and a few days later, I had it.

The movement listed for about $100 depending on the parts supplier. Several sellers on Amazon had the same watch listed for between $880 and $1100.

Before buying a movement, I found a couple of places that showed how to repair the movement. Also, one could buy parts for it. Well, the complications, construction and relative simplicity of the ETA 955.412, peaked my interest. OK. It didn’t have a mainspring, but it had wheels, jewels, a nice keyless winding mechanism. In fact, I liked it.

On Top

Underneath

This movement and a couple of other ETA models, allowed me to apply skills I learned in school and on my bench without a lot of hassle. The ETA movements impressed me.

Any Conclusions?

I still love my mechanical watches, especially the ones with ETA Unitas 6497 movements, but I’ve had to examine my biases. Is a quartz better than a mechanical or vice versa?

I’m not there yet. They’re different products. The Chronograph I mentioned above is quite a performer. I actually prefer it to Hamilton’s Auto Chrono mechanical (H32656785) and the price difference is a major factor.

When it comes to Asian quartz, my opinion remains the same, whether they’re Miyota or Seiko Instruments: I’m not interested.

You might find these links helpful when it comes to understanding more about the ETA 955.412 mentioned above.