Heiniger was partially correct- eventually, people did end up longing for the luxury of a mechanical, Swiss-made watch. He believed that after several years of relishing the funky designs and then-novel nature of quartz watches, people would eventually turn back to the luxury of a mechanical watch: a luxury that Switzerland had perfected for centuries. Heiniger saw the Quartz Crisis as a flaky trend, one that would suffer the same fate as technology like the transistor radio. In the 1970s André Heiniger was running Rolex – only the second person to do so after the brand’s founder Hans Wilsdorf. What did Rolex do during the Quartz Crisis? Many of the other luxury Swiss watch brands who survived the crisis also tried their hand at the quartz movement trend, producing luxury-leaning timepieces with quartz movements in an effort to capitalize on the trend and keep their customer’s attention. Swatch took the industry in a new direction, bringing the attention back to Swiss manufacturing, despite its modern, non-traditional quartz technology. The Swiss watch industry was largely revitalized by Swatch, who we know today for its inexpensive, quartz fashion watches. At the time, Quartz watches were seen as cutting-edge technology and were able to offer previously unattainable levels of accuracy, enticing more people to start buying and wearing watches that boasted quartz technology. It is known as the ‘Crisis’ because the quartz timekeeping technology entirely upended the entire legacy Swiss watchmaking industry. and European markets with their new products and taking a huge market share. Brands from Japan such as Seiko, Citizen, and Casio embraced the technology fully, flooding the U.S. Quartz movements were less expensive, more accurate, and could be produced at a scale far greater than mechanical movements at the time. The Quartz Crisis is a period of time that began in the 1970s and extended into the early 1980s when the mechanical watch industry was being outsold by inexpensive quartz timepieces that offered timekeeping performance beyond could not be achieved by traditional mechanical movements. For the first time in history, the wristwatch became cheap to manufacture and cheap for consumers to own. 1680.Ĭlick here for our Ultimate Buying Guide on Rolex watches. 16660.ġ979: Rolex discontinues the Submariner Date ref. 5055 for the Oysterquartz Date-Date).ġ978: Rolex launches the Sea-Dweller 4000 ref. 1680 watches are sold retail.ġ977: Rolex introduces its in-house quartz movements (cal. ![]() It is also the first time Rolex used a synthetic sapphire crystal instead of an acrylic crystal.ġ971: Rolex introduces the Oyster Perpetual Explorer II with the reference 1655.ġ972: Rolex embarks on a 5-year journey to conceptualize, design, develop, and test its own in-house quartz movement.ġ975: The last Rolex ‘Red Submariner’ ref. Ready to wind back the time?ġ970: Rolex introduces the reference 5100 powered by the Beta 21 movement, which was made after uniting with other Swiss watch brands to create the Centre Electronique Horloger, a group that banded together to make electronic watch movements. So, in this ultimate guide to vintage Rolex watches from the 1970s, we’re going to walk you through this remarkable and pivotal decade, explaining what led to these changes and highlighting the interesting (and highly collectible) watches that came out of it. Of course, the 1970s were also an iconic and incredibly influential era for fashion and style. ![]() While ‘The Crown’ wasn’t subject to any buy-outs or consolidations (or flat-out going under) like many other legacy watchmaking brands did during this decade, the quartz crisis still undeniably influenced Rolex’s design choices and movements. The 1970s were a strange, volatile time for the entire watch industry, including Rolex.
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