There are three types of watch movements : Quartz Watches, Manual Wind Watches , and Automatic Watches(Self-Winding ) .Therefore it is vital to know which one is of your preference.

QUARTZ WATCHES:

These watches are operated with battery and do not need a lot of maintenance . Usually the battery needs to be replaced once a year of every two years.. There is also a special kind of quartz that can be called a hybrid, because it is automatic and quartz at the same time. It has an electrical generator that gets charged with the movement of the arm. . These type of watches are made by Japanese or Swiss companies such as Seiko, Tissot , and Omega under model names called “Kinetic”, “Autoquartz”or “Omegamatic . The last kind of Quartz watches are charged with the sun’s energy. These solar watches have solar cells located on the dial that charge the watch mechanism. The most popular of these solar watches is without doubt the Citizen “Eco-Drive”.

MANUAL WIND WATCHES:

These watches need to be wound once a day or once every two days to run. After the watch is wound then it will keep a power reserve so that It will have charge until next winding. The collectors of timepieces think of these watches as highly desirable. It could be because it can be said that it is the old way of reading time, hence they were the first type of movements. Manual Winding Watches are still being made by the Top Swiss Brands such as Jaeger-Lecoultre and Franck Muller and could cost more than $500,000 when they have complications. A few exquisite models can reserve up to 18 days of power and will usually have a power reserve indicator.

AUTOMATIC WATCHES:

These type of watches are automatically or self-wound, there is not need for the wearer to manually wind the crown. Hence, the name automatic watches(self-winding). The watch charges with the movement of the wearer’s arm or wrist. These watches like the manual winding , keep a power reserve of usually more than a day so that the wearer will not lose time . These watches are currently produced by most Swiss and some Japanese companies.

It is good to keep in mind that each of these type of watch movements have their advantages and disadvantages. For example , You might think that automatic watches are better than quartz watches because you do need to replace a battery, however one advantage of quartz watches is that they are more accurate than automatic watches. What really matters is that they all show the time , the most valuable asset in life.

Oscar Messina is the owner of Messina Jewelers and expert in fine watches such as Rolex Watches including models such as Rolex Datejust