Rolex
Sunday RewindThe First Battery-Powered Watch
Don't call it quartz, it's been here for years.
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Some of the most fascinating watches come from times of transition and, in the era following the Second World War, Hamilton created the Electric 500 – the first watch ever to use a battery-powered movement. Marking a waypoint on the road to the eventual quartz crisis, this Hamilton also marks a passing moment in time, when an American watchmaker was operating at the bleeding edge of current technology.
Written by Jack more than four years ago, this is an electrifying story (if you'll allow the pun) that covers the creation of a very specialized watch movement that looks much more like a traditional mechanical movement than it does a modern quartz movement. Operating with the help of a moving coil, the Model 500 was complex and hit the market in 1957, just a few years before Bulova and their tuning fork watches that also used batteries. For the full story, hit the link below.
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