The movement is the heart of the watch and literally what makes it tick. This is arguably one of the most important pieces in a watch construction. For being that critical, getting a quality movement is what you are looking for, but what defines "well-made movement"?
Types of Movements
First let's talk about types of movements. The 3 most common you will see are Quartz, Mechanical (manual-wind) and Automatic (self-wind).
The Quartz movement was invented in 1927 but wasn't regularly used as wrist watch movements until the end of the 1960s. These movements use a battery that sends a current through a quartz crystal creating vibrations. These vibrations then are converted to one pulse per second and moves the hands of the watch. These movements are very accurate but will ever so often need a battery replacement.
The Mechanical movement predates wrist watches and were used on different types of watches from pocket watches to grandfather clocks. This movement uses a spring (mainspring) that will need to be wound to hold and then transfer energy to the other parts of the movement. When the spring is releasing energy, a series of gears move the energy to a balance wheel that oscillates back and forth. The balance wheel oscillation transitions to seconds for the watch. For the mainspring to have enough energy to power the watch, it needs to be wound every so often. This is done on a wrist watch by pulling out the crown and manually rotating the crown several times. This movement is also referred to as manual-wind because of this and a wound spring typically keeps the watch running for about 40 to 50 hours.
The Automatic movement was invented in the late 1700s for pocket watches. An automatic movement is a mechanical movement but with a rotor that winds the mainspring. With the natural movement of the wearer the rotor rotates and self winds the mainspring and thus called a self-winding movement. Even though the watch can wind itself, if the watch is not worn for a very long time or placed in an automatic watch winder, the watch will stop, but will soon start up again after being worn.
Quality Movements
Watch movements, whether quartz, mechanical or automatic, can be made anywhere in the world but there are a few places where quality movements are made.
The Swiss have a long history of making beautiful quality movements and have been making them since the 16th century. Up until the 1970s, Swiss watches had 50% of the world's market and are still the standard that all other movements are compared to today. You cannot go wrong with buying a Swiss made movement. Some Swiss brand movements are ETA and Sellita.
Japanese movements started to make a dent in the market in the 70s. These movements are known for their accuracy and reliability and are typically less expensive than Swiss movements. Many well known Japanese movements are Seiko, Citizen, Miyota and Orient.
There might be other watch movements starting to rise but for now nothing beats the Swiss or Japanese. Look for these in conjunction with the case material, crystal material and water resistance when determining watch quality.
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