Unlikely horological heroes :The Beta 21 movement - Watch 101

Over the last few decades,  quartz took over a large fraction of the watch market ; in 2016 the Swiss manufacturers exported 25.1 millions timepieces and 18.2 millions of them were Quartz pieces, even though they represent a large chunk of exportations it only represents a fraction of the industry financial turnover. It’s commonly recognized that the Japanese invented the quartz movement, yet we must pay tribute and honor a group of swiss engineers who designed the first Swiss quartz movement.

By : Chahine SIDIK

In 1959; the former Chairman of the Fondation Horlogère, set out on their quest for technological improvement as Roger Wellinger  asked a former General Electric employee to unite a team of the best engineers he could possibly find and improve horological technology and ended up nearly revolutionizing the entire industry. “La crème de la crème” of Swiss engineering teamed up in Neuchâtel and in January 1960 the CEH was created “Centre d’horlogerie electronique” or in english obviously “Electronic Horology Center” with one simple task, create a wristwatch with at least one benefit over regular mechanical watches. Two years later the CEH focused their researches on Quartz again. Five years later, in 1967 Beta 1 and Beta 2 movements appeared to be functional and were actively competing with other chronometers, the Beta 1 & 2 destroyed the other competitors by running 10 times more accurately than any other mechanical movements presented that day.

The Beta 21 :

Right after dominating the competition a newer prototype saw the light of day and was conceived with the help of 21 of the biggest names in industry including Rolex, Patek Philippe, IWC, and Omega. February 15th. 1968 the Beta 21 was made  and presented two years later at the “foire Suisse de Bale” better known today as “Basel World”. The Beta 21 was presented four months after the Japanese Seiko Astron and put it in direct competition and pointed out two differents views on the Quartz watch manufacturing business.

20 of the 21 brands launched their own products ; The Rolex 5100, the Patek Phillipe 3587/2 and so on. Several months later a newer and improved version was released as the Beta 22 and only equipped another version of the Rolex 5100 and they were extremely exclusive.

1984, the CEH ceased activities and became an independent research center for the Swiss industry.

Swiss quartz overall :

The movement launched by these watches shows the Swiss quartz industry, with a radically different approach as shown previously were able to come out with something revolutionary. The Swiss and Japanese have different views on what the quartz should be; for the Japanese industry quartz was an evolution of the mechanical movements. Higher prices were normal at the beginning and ultimately reduce the prices as they became  cheaper to produce, whereas the Swiss perceived the quartz as more exclusive, as they were more precise and were produced almost exclusively in precious metal and for those reasons had higher prices and were only produced in limited series. This ideological difference between the two parties were one of the many reasons that would lead to the Quartz crisis that shook the industry.

Notwithstanding being the first Swiss quartz movement, the mechanism was a total failure due to the fact it was remarkably fragile, unstable, and had major problems with energy consumption. All those elements pointed out the fact that the movement was conceived in a rush. Nevertheless, the Beta 21 movement had an impact on its era, inspiring a lot of brands to create their own in-house quartz movements and gave life to the quartz industry. Somehow “failures are always a lesson” and the industry learned the lesson and released two of the coolest watches of all time; the Rolex Oyster Quartz and in 1983 the first Swatch.

Writer Chahine SIDIK | Editor Evan Smith