IWC Schaffhausen
Absolute Seventies: Beta 21 Quartz Funk
IWC Schaffhausen
Absolute Seventies: Beta 21 Quartz Funk
Come second in the Olympics and you get a silver medal. Come second in the Palio – a bareback horse race around the center of Siena – and your supporters will try to assault you. For, in their eyes, coming second means that you could have won, if you had only tried a little harder. Watchmaking is more like the Palio than the Olympics as no one remembers who came second, which is why the Beta 21 quartz watches of the 1970s have drifted into relative obscurity. You see, they contained the second quartz watch movement ever produced, launched four months after Seiko’s Quartz Astron took the crown.
Seiko had some history with quartz timekeeping, having produced large clocks for astronomical observatories and then shrinking that technology to the size of a table clock, so it became obvious to everyone that the next step would be the quartz wristwatch, and the competition would be between the Swiss and the Japanese. Seiko pulled together a team of engineers from within the company, whilst the Swiss did what they do best and formed a committee. That committee pulled in engineers from several competing brands, non-watchmaking electronics firms and academics. The group, based in Neuchâtel, was named Centre Electronique Horloger (CEH) and by 1967 made the Beta 1, the world’s first quartz wristwatch, but only as a small series of five prototypes.
One of the biggest rows at CEH was over how to reduce the frequency of the quartz crystal from its natural 8,192 vibrations per second to a rate at which they could drive the watch. The discussion was whether to use a stepping motor or a vibration oscillator (like the Bulova Accutron’s tuning fork). It was thought that the stepping motor solution would require too much power, so the decision was made to go for the vibrating oscillator.
The time spent on this debate could have been spent developing the Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductors (CMOS), which CEH was already working on. These would not only have reduced the power demands of the movement but would also have greatly reduced its size. As it were, the production versions of the movement were a massive 30.9 x 26.5mm. This was at a time when slim and elegant watches were in vogue – not a description you can apply to any of the Beta 21 timepieces.
A Sign of the Times
Mechanical watches had always been sold on the premise that the more you paid for a watch, the more accurate it would be. This made sense, as the longer the manufacturer spent regulating the watch, the more accurate it would be, hence the folks who did the regulation work were the highest-paid employees. Added to the fact that, after the huge amounts of money the firms had poured into the project they were determined to recoup their investments, it is easy to understand why the Beta 21s came to market as very expensive watches.
The sheer size of the movement prohibited the firms from producing slim elegant watches and so they decided to emphasize the new movement by giving the watches a futuristic style. Perhaps the most radical design came from the most conventional of firms, Patek Philippe, whose watch only came in yellow or white gold and bore no resemblance to any previous model they had made. It resembled two half-egg shapes joined together with a TV-shaped aperture set inside it and was finished in a brushed effect with a thin polished surround to the dial, which, in a radical departure for Patek Philippe, was blue. Adding to the modern appearance was the perfectly flat sapphire crystal, a first for the company. It came to market in three versions, one with hidden lugs, one with conventional lugs and one with a gold bracelet that brought to mind Ming the Merciless in Flash Gordon.
Shape Shifters
But if Rolex was conservative, then it was the smaller firms who went completely in the other direction. Longines, for example, chose to rotate the movement through 45 degrees, resulting in the crown and the date being positioned at 4.30. But that was nothing compared to the dial, which is two-tone brushed silver with a grey minute-track and features huge three-dimensional applied diamond-cut indices which stand like eagles’ beaks above the dial, the words “Quartz Chron” at 6 o’clock separated by a block of blue lacquer and faceted parallel index style hands with polished surfaces and tritium inserts.
Designed for Fit
Piaget has almost always been known for dress watches and for the slimness of its movements, so producing a watch using the massive Beta 21 movement was a special challenge for the brand. The problem was solved by simplifying the case and dial – the case became a simple rectangle with curved corners and stepped sides to emphasize the height and make a feature of what had seemed a problem. The dial was completely devoid of any indices or text other than the brand name. And to confirm that this was a dress watch, the seconds hand disappeared.