To my mind, that says it all about the silliness of automatic watch aficionados.

May I remind everyone that the primary purpose of a watch is to tell time accurately? If it doesn’t do that, it’s merely a wrist-toy. And there is no question a quartz movement will tell time more accurately than even the most refined mechanical movement.

And the rationale that quartz movements should be shunned because they’re found in some “tacky cheap” watches is equally silly. I have some old automatic movement-driven Timexes and other plastic watches that defined low-quality. So, should automatic movements be considered “tacky cheap” as well. And, when it comes to “Disney characters,” exactly what kind of movement did the original, low-quality Mickey Mouse watches contain? Hint: it wasn’t quartz.

To me, the scandal is not that some expensive watches may contain “tacky cheap” quartz movements, it’s that mechanical watches — including $20,000 Rolexes as well as $100 Orients — simply don’t tell time anywhere near as accurately as the cheapest quartz movement. Now, THAT’S “tacky cheap,” if you ask me…no matter what the pricetag.