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Talk:Quartz crisis/Archive 1

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Archive 1

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I'm not sure why the section on complicated mechanical watches from China was removed as being "meaningless". It seems quite an accurate description of trade chatter to me. I suppose the references were a bit casual but that hardly justifies remove it. - Tobin Richard (talk) 03:55, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Oops, I spoke too soon. It was removed by accident it seems. - Tobin Richard (talk) 04:22, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Google books further reading

Perhaps digging into these books can stiffen up this article and make it a little less like the product of a watch-collector.

--Wtshymanski (talk) 02:50, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Agree, this article is a mess - it reads like it was written for a grade-school essay and the essay got a D. This is an encyclopedia, not a magazine and as it stands this article does not meet Wikipedia's standards by a long shot. Not only that, we appear to have an IP editor who is attempting to WP:OWN the article. I've removed alot of the the material that is either poorly sourced or writtent to read like an essay. Wether or not it's been in the article for 2 years means nothing. Because nobody looked at the article for 2 years doesn't mean the material meets any Wikipedia criteria for creating a good article. --Yankees76 (talk) 12:57, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
Watchmakers don't sell time, they sell watches. Watches are neither rare nor expensive; in most societies, I venture to say anyone who has a fixed address can afford a watch. The linked article doesn't explain what a "4th generation" watch would do, nor does it go into the visible trend of abandonment of wrist watches altogether since our phones, MP3 players, etc. all give us the time incidentally to their primary purposes. "Watch as utilitarian tool" isn't the market that the Swiss are aiming for any more, more like "Watch as kinetic sculpture art form" for the wine-and-cheese critic set. None of the 5-digit-price-tag mechanical nightmares shown in the glossy watch-porn magazines are any better at keeping time than the exceptionally ugly 10-year-old Ironman I wear. A drugstore quartz watch is (nearly) sufficiently stable for ocean navigation - there would be no practical purpose served by higher-stability watches, which is why there is no "4th or 5th" "generation". You can only sell something if there is a demand for it.
This article could instead give a useful insight as to how the tightly-regimented Swiss watch business reformed itself to meet the challenge of world competition, after shedding tens of thousands of workers and remodelling away from the "handicraft" model of production to centralized factories,and by moving out of the mass market and into pricier watches that allow the margins for their more costly workforce.
It's a bit like winemaking - anyone can grow grapes and make plonk that will give you a buzz, but if you want to differentiate your product and get more money for basically the same commodity, you must crank up the marketing angle and appeal to the connoisseurs; luckly this is an endless market. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:10, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
Okay, I've done a fairly major overhaul. Got rid of most of the unreliable sources, most of the text that read like it was copied from a book and all of the WP:Crystal ball "3rd and 4th crisis" material that shouldn't be in this article in the first place. I added some pics and made it alot more concise instead of the meandering mess it was before. It still might need a few tweaks here and there, but at least it's passable now. It still requires a more worldwide view - in particular what was happening in Japan. --Yankees76 (talk) 22:10, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Page Title

Why is this called the "Quartz Crisis"? I have read some chapters of books dealing with this period in Swiss watch making and none refer to it by the title of this page. The "Quartz Revolution" is used. p.s. I have some information regarding Japanese production during the 1970's and 1980, will write it up soon.Walkingtheroad (talk) 03:53, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Google Books gives 63 hits for ' "quartz revolution" Swiss watch' and only 1 hit for ' "quartz crisis" Swiss watch ', so that would be a plausible title for this article. Revolutions usually imply some kind of crisis, anyway. --Wtshymanski (talk) 03:57, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
From what I've read, if we refer to what happened in the 1970's and 1980's it as a "crisis" we're talking mainly about Switzerland - the loss of market share, the loss of jobs, the closing of companies, the reduction in salaries, etc. For Japan it was quite a good time, their exports were huge, not a crisis. Walkingtheroad (talk) 04:16, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
That's why I added Revolution in the first sentence. I think the original writer of the article wrote it strictly from a Swiss POV - it was clearly not encyclopedic. I'd be in favor of a title that presents a better worldwide view. --Yankees76 (talk) 12:34, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

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