His report basically stated that the new battery driven watches still used a conventional balance-wheel movement and therefore could not lead to an improvement in accuracy. Max Hetzel reported his findings to the management of Bulova in April 1952. Bulova was concerned that his company would lose market share if it did not also produce a battery powered watch. Arde Bulova, who was the president of Bulova Watch Company at the time, asked Max Hetzel to research these new watches. These watches were heralded as the greatest advance in the field of watchmaking in 450 years. In March 1952 watchmakers Elgin and Lip, introduced electric watches. When Seiko won the contract for timing equipment for the 1964 Olympics, it was clear to everybody in the industry that development of a successful quartz watch would eventually make all other electrically-powered watches obsolete. I suspect one of the reasons for Hamilton later switching to Swiss transistorized electromechanicals rather than developing their own equivalent was that by then they were already focussing on developing a quartz watch with electronic display i.e. So yes, I agree with you that Hamilton electrics were not the great thing that they were promoted as at the time. Hamilton's big mistake was attempting to market a transitional technology as a premium product when in fact the real success of contact-switched electric watches was in second-rank products that made battery-powered watches accessible to the mass market. It is true that Hamilton movements were somewhat delicate and complicated, however both Timex and Ruhla were able to refine the concept into simpler, more durable designs. This was the one that they also provided to Ricoh in Japan. The crucial innovations that enabled electronic watches to be made were the transistor and the button-cell.Ĭlick to expand.Which is why they very quickly brought out a second generation movement. I'd regard Lip, Hamilton and Bulova to be parallel developmentsĪs regards firsts, remember that contact-switching electrics, electromagnetically-switching electric/electronics, tuning-fork occilators and quartz occilators had all been used successfully in clocks before Max Hetzel had his big idea. Unfortunately they didn't finish it until after Hamilton. Then there was Lip who commenced work on a contact-switched electric with diode relay even before Hamilton and Bulova. And of course the transistorized balance-wheel electromechanicals which were made in large numbers by various Swiss, Japanese and German companies right into the mid 1970s.īTW, do you have any photos of Hetzel's prototypes? My understanding is that they were just bread-boarded working mock-ups, not cased-up and fully-functional wristwatches. Not to mention others like Ruhla and Timex who built the same kind of thing for many years. Hardly a 'flop' considering how many Hamilton built and sold.
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