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This is an edition of the newsletter Box + Papers, Cam Wolf’s weekly deep dive into the world of watches. Sign up here. It’s Hot Take Month here on Box + Papers, with a new guest writer dropping by each Friday to deliver their spiciest watch opinion. This week, I’ve finally wrestled Yang-Yi Goh, GQ’s senior style editor, into the catbird seat of B+P. One of the most stylish dudes on the planet, the only guy I know who loves Blink-182 more than I do, and an absolute god at scooping up cool stuff on eBay. Every couple of weeks, he messages me something watch-related on Slack that makes me think, YOU HAVE TO WRITE THAT! That’s exactly how today’s column came to be. —Cam Wolf I own exactly three watches. There’s my daily driver, my 1969 Seiko 6139-6010 “Bruce Lee,” a handsome, dependable automatic chronograph with a rich backstory. There’s my dress watch, a slim, manual-winding, ’60s-era Universal Geneve number, which I break out whenever I’m feeling a little fancy. And then there’s my other watch, the one I often forget about completely, that I am always pleasantly surprised to stumble upon in a dresser drawer every couple of months: a quartz-powered Timex MK1 field watch, made in collaboration with the low-key Brooklyn menswear gods at Adsum. The thing that shocks me most about the Timex? No matter how long it’s been since I last wore it, be it a couple of weeks or half a year, the thing is always still ticking—and keeping good time, at that. In the three or so years that I’ve owned it, I’ve never once had to change the battery. Given that my Seiko’s automatic movement stops still after a day or two of inactivity, and my Universal Geneve needs to be wound by hand before every wear, the Timex’s steady march forward in the face of utter neglect never ceases to astonish me. Because here’s the truth: Quartz watches are a goddamn miracle, and it’s high time we all gave ’em the respect they so richly deserve. I’m not a “true” watch guy by any means, but I’ve been editing this very column for long enough to know all the valid reasons that horology heads hate on battery-operated timepieces. The widespread adoption of the cheap-to-produce technology in the ’70s and ’80s all but hollowed out the Swiss watchmaking industry—an era often referred to as the “Quartz Crisis,” which sounds too much like a DC Comics crossover event for me to really take seriously. And then there’s the fact that quartz watches, with their grotesque circuit board innards, simply don’t possess the artful beauty of an automatic or manual movement, an orchestra of whirring rotors and shifting gears all rigged together meticulously by a master craftsperson. But those critiques tend to overlook a few crucial counterpoints. For one thing, the Quartz Crisis is long over, and the luxury watch market is once again booming—a few tariff-related hiccups notwithstanding—with eight of the top brands now selling more than $1 billion worth of goods apiece every year. You won, mechanical watches! No need to continue dumping on the competition! Secondly: Do you know why a quartz movement is called that? Because it functions through the resonant vibrations of an actual quartz crystal housed inside the electronics. That’s how, like, lightsabers are supposed to work, not dime-a-dozen watches! Maybe it’s not as intricate and complex as a mechanical movement, but it’s certainly a technological marvel. And let’s not forget that when quartz was first introduced, it was treated as such—the reason so many vaunted timepieces from the ’70s and ’80s say “quartz” on the dial, such as the OG Piaget Polo, is because it was initially considered a luxury. Finally, quartz watches are no longer the real enemy. Phones are. In 2025, watches are watches are watches, and any snootiness over the inner workings of one timepiece over another needs to be put aside. If young people are choosing to strap on a MoonSwatch or a Noah x Timex Tank or any of the other excellent cheap tickers out there right now, that’s a big win for the preservation and continuation of watch culture. For my part, while I’ll always probably choose my Seiko first and my UG second, I’ll continue to cherish the days when wearing my trusty Adsum Timex feels like the right move. And I’ll rest assured knowing that no matter how long I go between wears, its mighty quartz movement will almost certainly still be ticking away faithfully whenever I pick it back up.
