From the 1980s to the 2020s, quartz watches were maligned and detested by most serious watch collectors. In the late 1960s, inexpensive but accurate quartz watches almost upended the Swiss watch industry. The Swiss watch industry lost hundreds of millions in sales due to these accurate watches, which Seiko continued to turn into the multibillion dollar success that it is today.
The Swiss watch industry began exploring quartz watches quickly. While they couldn’t compete with the very inexpensive and very accurate Seikos, the Swiss watch industry got together in a huge collaboration to make their own expensive and accurate quartz watches. These movements were very large, and at the time, gold was cheap. This—combined with mid-century, sometimes freeform and often brutalist designs popular at the time—made for very interesting designs.
These watches were often scoffed at by collectors because they were huge, but mostly because they were quartz.
Today is the second quartz revival. Collectors all over the world are clamoring for them, and they were often made in short runs. Because of heavy amounts of gold, many were melted before they became popular again.
Today, with renewed interest in quartz timekeeping, these often limited-run watches can bring a tidy sum.
This month, we acquired three examples that we show off today.
From left, the Rolex 5100 Beta 21 is called the “Texano” by collectors, which was a derisive name given by the Italian watch press in the 1980s making fun of its grandiose size. It was Rolex’s first quartz watch using the collaborative Swiss movement and was massive in size to accommodate the huge movement. They are difficult to find because they only made about 1,000 of them and many were later melted. This is number 472.
Next, the equally rare Omega Megaquartz 18kt gold Constellation with $15,000 in gold value alone.
Finally, an attractive Eterna Sonic 18kt gold watch with almost $10,000 of gold alone.
While the Eterna and Omega will sell for 10 to 20% over gold value, the Texano will fetch more than double its gold value.
