Discussion
Imagine sending a cheap analog pocketwatch (you can buy one for $5, and most of that cost is the shipping and labor) to the distant past when technical watches were rare.
What would an expert watchmaker make of the mechanism? The cheapness of the parts? The extreme precision, but also the corner cutting?
Thank you for these observations, and they may better inform a moment in a story I'm writing.
@futurebird There don't seem to be a lot of horologists active on the fediverse, so I don't get to talk watch too much! (Although I'm more of a clockmaker than a watchmaker).
Do you machine parts? Or do you repair old mechanisms? I knew a guy who made clocks out of paper. Just paper, they were not very good at keeping time but that they worked at all astonished me.
@futurebird I have a feeling that a cheap quartz or mechanical watch might be a worse timekeeper than the large marine chronometers they used to take on board ships, but I can't find any specific numbers.
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@futurebird Uh oh, you've touched off my horology nerd systems.
I've definitely thought about this, although I usually think about it with at least a $35 Chinese wrist watch movement. The modern "dollar watch" pocket watch movements like you are talking about are pretty darn crude.
Comparing a modern watch movement to, say, an 18th century movement, the modern ones are a marvel of precision miniaturization, but they hold nothing on the intricate beauty of the plates and bridges on the older ones. By the late 19th and early 20th century ones, they are remarkably similar to modern ones. Other than materials and machining improvements, the only really large design changes on a typical watch are the shock resistant jewel mounts and the automatic rotor systems.