If there is one discontinued watch that I would have loved to buy new in 2019 it would be the Oysterquartz. Does anyone know why Rolex stopped making these about 20 years ago? Was it a plain economic decision or was it a strategic decision? If it's the latter then in my opinion, it's time to reverse this decision. I think there is a place for a high end Swiss sports/tool quartz watch.
There is a place for 'high end' quartz watches, however, it's mainly the Japanese manufactures like Grand Seiko & Citizen (their chronomaster range) that seem to bother.
Omega do a few variations, too. I haven't a clue why Rolex stopped producing them, they were, if I remember correctly, very good indeed.
Maybe quartz didn't suit Rolex product direction. You know, as the 'best watches in the world'! :-d
I well recall the Rolex Oysterquartz watches that included SS, TT and solid 18K YG watches that were accompanied with integral bracelets. Of course when Rolex discontinued their Oysterquartz watches, nothing was announced regarding their rationale for doing so. At this point I would be hesitant to buy a vintage Oysterquartz because of discontinued parts and service availability, even if I had an interest in one of those models at the current time.
I prefer HAQ (High Accuracy Quartz) as it sounds better than HEQ, but it is mostly GS 9F movements and Citizen particularly their 0100 movement that are interesting today. It is always nice to have a HAQ nearby to use to set your Rolex watches as they lose or gain time. I am not certain I am in love with the integral bracelets on the Oysterquartz watches or I would add one.
Does anyone know if they were thermocompensated like the HAQs?
$7400-25,000 seems expensive for a quartz but +/- 1 second/year time accuracy is very unique (Citizen 0100) but the finishing even on the platinum model seems far short of the GSs.
Does anyone know if they were thermocompensated like the HAQs?
$7400-25,000 seems expensive for a quartz but +/- 1 second/year time accuracy is very unique (Citizen 0100) but the finishing even on the platinum model seems far short of the GSs.
Indeed, the Rolex quartz movement can be thermocompensated. The battery replacement, when done by either an RSC or a technician who is well versed in Rolex quartz is much more than just a 'unscrew the back, remove and replace the battery, grease up the gasket and screw the back on' kind of job. When the replacement is done right, it's a big deal in readjusting the movement for accuracy.
I have a Timex Weekender whose battery can be replaced for $2.50 (actually $0.25, with nine batteries left over). I'll gladly trade it for any working Rolex or Omega quartz if you don't like its cost of service.
Strange, my Verizon clock and my TV cable clock are perfectly synced. So unless Verizon and my cable company who is not affiliated with Verizon are using the same sources, I think it's fair to assume it's spot on. Try checking it again.
Strange, my Verizon clock and my TV cable clock are perfectly synced. So unless Verizon and my cable company who is not affiliated with Verizon are using the same sources, I think it's fair to assume it's spot on. Try checking it again.
I had checked it a couple times before my original reply, and it was almost 2 seconds slow, just checked it again at the top of the hour and its closer to 1 sec slow now. Like I said originally, it may be that different networks have slightly different times, but I agree with you, I don't know why they all wouldn't be exactly synched to GPS. I can't explain the reason for the discrepancy, but have noticed it repeatedly.
Maybe some phones only synch periodically and then use a local time crystal and drift over time. Just to be clear, I'm going by when the minute changes on my phone display, is that the same as what you're doing?
Yes, I'm going just as the minute changes on my cell phone as my reference time when setting my watch. I'll do this once a month on my Explorer, shouldn't be too much wear and tear on the crown right? Anyway, seems like we both are doing the same thing. Cheers!
I did that with a Sub I owned for 22 years before the seal finally gave out and I leaked seawater into it while snorkeling in the ocean. It was only going to cost about $500 to have fixed in 2003. Since I was kinda tired of it and looking for change I sold it, never anticipating it would be worth $10k today if I'd just fixed it and thrown it in a drawer. The winding stem also pulled out of the case once during that 22 years and I had that repaired for about $50, not sure if they replaced any O-rings while they were at it or not.
If there is one discontinued watch that I would have loved to buy new in 2019 it would be the Oysterquartz. Does anyone know why Rolex stopped making these about 20 years ago? Was it a plain economic decision or was it a strategic decision? If it's the latter then in my opinion, it's time to reverse this decision. I think there is a place for a high end Swiss sports/tool quartz watch.
They saw what was happening -- great timekeeping in durable watches was going to get cheaper and cheaper thanks to improvements in quartz watch production from the Far East -- so they repositioned themselves into a pricier, romance-n'-heritage jewelry concept. They literally just told the customer that archaic, fragile, temperamental gears-n'-springs were somehow better and, thus, more expensive and exclusive.
Omega/TAG/etc followed the quartz revolution and nearly value-dumped themselves into Timex territory. Fortunately for themselves, they [mostly] started telling the public that they were better than before because they began using a lot of gears n' springs again.
The problem with that is that wristwatches were invented in the first place because pulling a timekeeping device out of your pocket was a pain in the erse. It's funny seeing someone saying "I don't need a wristwatch, I simply *fumbles in pocket* pull out my iPhone and *squirms in chair trying to get hand into other pocket* flick on the screen and unlock it and *swears under breath and pats jacket until heavy device within swings and clanks against the chair upright* the time on the screen is right there *turns on screen and stares at it, slack-jawed, before realising the lighting isn't quite good enough for mugshot recognition*. Smooth.
Also having an Apple phone on your wrist is good but it needs regular charging, quickly becomes obsolete, has no value retention (is disposable) and means you have to have another Apple phone, which is not particularly great and rather limiting, as only 1 in 10 mobiles uses iOS. But apart from that...
So after I got home from work tonight I did a short video of my watch next to the phone with the GPS display running and watched the transitions frame-by-frame. The watch and GPS were 1 video frame apart, the phone was 20 video frames behind (@60Hz frame rate) so only 0.33 seconds for this particular test. The 1-2 seconds I saw earlier was at work, I'll take the video camera to work tomorrow and see if I can verify the time difference there as well.
At work today I did the video thing on my Verizon network time and it was 1.7 seconds behind GPS time (1 second plus 41 frames). Never gave this any thought before, but I can't understand why the cellular network isn't synched exactly to GPS, I thought it was typical for the base stations to do that, apparently not.
If there is one discontinued watch that I would have loved to buy new in 2019 it would be the Oysterquartz. Does anyone know why Rolex stopped making these about 20 years ago? Was it a plain economic decision or was it a strategic decision? If it's the latter then in my opinion, it's time to reverse this decision. I think there is a place for a high end Swiss sports/tool quartz watch.
Quartz is associated with cheap. Rolex chooses to forget that watch. I have entertained the idea of buying one but I would ultimately get too annoyed by the fake Rolex comments. Also, the negative impressions a ticking Rolex may make in my professional life is just not worth it.
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