As a watch lover, there’s something hypnotizing about watching the second hand either tick away if it’s a quartz movement or sweep away if it’s an automatic/mechanical. If it’s the former, you’d love to be able to get one where the second hand jumps and hits each marking around the dial with precision. If it’s the latter, you’d want a movement that produces as smooth of a sweep of the hand as possible where there’s very little visible jitter. For people who think it’s dumb or useless to stare at a watch other than to tell the current time, well, they obviously just don’t get it. When I first saw the Grand Seiko Spring Drive movement, it was mind-blowing. It has one of the smoothest sweeping seconds hand seen in any watch. Yes, even watches that cost a lot, lot more. The Spring Drive is just buttery smooth. This leads me to rethinking a question I’ve had many, many years ago in regard to quartz: can a quartz movement be created that can mimic and create the illusion of a sweeping motion by ticking many times more per second? It seems that I have finally found the answer.

But before getting into that, what really led me down this train of thought decades ago just so happened to be when I first bought a wall clock for our living room as a kid. You see, it was a budget clock, nothing special. What it did advertise was that it was a “silent, non-ticking” clock. What? How can it be a quartz clock if it isn’t “ticking”? All I’ve ever known at that point as a kid is that a quartz clock = a ticking seconds hand. Lo and behold, I was absolutely shocked to see how this wall clock that cost under $10 is able to generate this hypnotizing smooth seconds hand with virtually no sound coming from it. Many years afterward, I figured I’d just go buy a watch with the same smooth sweeping hand. If my budget wall clock could do it, I’m sure my watch, which costs many times over, could also do it. However, this was not the case to be, as I sadly discovered. My love for watches only grew from there as I went down the rabbit hole.

mechaquartz

One of the coolest inventions when it came to a budget quartz movement that produced a sweeping movement came from Seiko. Termed as their “mechaquartz” movement by the community, it is battery powered similar to a regular ticking quartz but instead of beating once per second, their VH series beat at 4 times per second instead! In short, this allows the second hand to create that illusion to the eye that it’s “sweeping”. However, underneath it all, it’s still “ticking”, just that it ticks more per second. You are still able to tell, even from further away, that the sweeping movement is a bit jagged. There is this ever slight hiccup that is present as it moves around the dial. It’s however obviously still better than a single tick, pause, tick, pause as in a regular quartz.

You can read much more about the mechaquartz movement from this excellent site.

For someone wanting a watch that has a sweeping seconds hand but don’t want the hassle of needing to wind it as in a mechanical or automatic, Seiko’s VK and VH series should be a perfect compromise. The movement should also be easy to source, so custom watchmakers, such as on eBay and elsewhere, can sell you watches that fit and look more to your liking than their bigger name counterparts at a fraction of the cost. I’m a big nerd of field watches. I had purchased a custom watch on eBay from a seller in London that sold custom military watches in 34mm. As I wanted a sweeping movement, the watch using the VH series movement along with the very friendly price of $60 seal the deal for me. One of the more known watchmakers that uses these mechaquartz movement is Dan Henry. This guy is a legitimate watch collector that produces very good looking watches at a very affordable price. One of the bigger disadvantage to using a movement such as this is that you’ll likely need to change the battery more often than with a regular quartz single tick movement.

precisionist

The mechaquartz is definitely cool, but I think it could still be improved upon? Well, it was only very recently that I discovered a movement from a watch brand that doesn’t often get mentioned enough in the watch community, but who has accomplished a lot in its history. That brand is Bulova. Founded in 1875 and now part of Citizen since 2007, they certainly know a thing or two about watch making. Unfortunately for myself, in the past, I had likened Bulova watches to the older crowd. The more hip and young crowd obviously wore the much cooler Rolex or Omega, without even realizing that they weren’t even in the same category, price wise. As I matured, I got to know more about these watch brands and being able to appreciate them a lot more and realized just how stupid and immature I was back in the days.

The answer to what I’ve been asking myself for so long comes from Bulova. Their Precisionist movement looks to be the holy grail of being able to incorporate a quartz movement but with the ultra buttery smooth sweeping seconds hand that even rivals the Grand Seiko Spring Drive. Rather than 4 ticks per second like the mechaquartz, they pumped it up to 16 per second! It is absolutely mind blowing how they are able to accomplish this feat. Oh, and it’s accurate up to 10 seconds a year. Yes, a year, not a month. This can be considered to be in the high accuracy quartz (HAQ) category. To top it off, the majority of the watches in the lineup costs less than $1000! Watching the reviews online, it would be extremely hard for someone to not classify this as an automatic or mechanical movement. Up close or further out, you can hardly tell any jitters at all in the sweep, unlike the mechaquartz. You can imagine my excitement as I started to browse their Precisionist lineup.

You can read more about the Precisionist movement here.

Unfortunately, and I heavily, heavily mean “unfortunately”, their Precisionist lineup of watches is just ugly. I’m not even able to sugarcoat it. They are just ugly to me. For a minute, I thought I was looking at the Casio G-Shock lineup of 50-55mm military watches. It baffles me to no end on how they can put such an innovative and fine quality movement on something so monstrous looking. It feels to me as if someone wore a tuxedo to a sports game. It is just really hard for me to fathom why they went with this. I did, however, found three models in the lineup that looks like something I can proudly display in my collection if it ticked off all the sizing requirements and if money wasn’t a thing. Those three would be the Jet Star, Super Seville and the Marine Star.

You can tell how sexy and smooth that sweep is. To think that it’s actually a quartz movement powered by a battery is pretty damn crazy. The Super Seville and the Jet Star oozes a vintage design and I absolutely love it. The Marine Star reminds me of the popular Tag Heuer Aqua Racer model. Unfortunately, all three models are a bit bigger than what I would have liked. But if you have an average sized wrist, though, they would likely fit perfectly on you. The Super Seville, while I do not like that bezel type, will likely wear a lot larger than what it’s 38mm would suggest due to the pillow/TV shaped case. I’m sure many others will also dislike the 262kHz logo advertisement on the bottom.

I’m begging you Bulova to please put this Precisionist movement on more watches. I would personally prefer these to be on smaller and elegant time pieces rather than the beasts you have out now in the current lineup. If you can somehow squeeze the Super Seville onto a 34-36 case, it’ll be so damn hard to resist. I’ll be willing to overlook the bezel and the 262kHz logo placement just to own that Precisionist movement! The same goes for the other two models size wise. The price point is absolutely perfect. I expected somewhere north of maybe $3000-$5000 for this movement. Grand Seiko themselves are charging that amount for their 9F high accuracy quartz movement, and they don’t have the benefit of this beautiful sweeping movement. To be able to get this at under $1000 or so is an absolute steal. At the most extreme, I can hope for you to consider leasing out this movement for other watch producers to use? Anything, and I mean anything, to raise more awareness for this movement would also be a plus.