Does It Make Sense To Spend So Much On A Quartz Watch?

One of the first things that you learn from watch magazines, blogs and collectors is that quartz watches are off limit. They lack soul, they are cheap or at least cheapen the watch and basically cant be taken seriously when youre into collecting watches.Whenever someone asks what my profession is, I tell him or her that I write about watches. Mechanical watches. As this makes the explanation that I am only writing about serious watches redundant. But it is of course not the truth, theres more to this than the movement of a watch. Gerard wrote about his love for G-Shocks a number of times, including in one of the recent You Asked Us features. But what about more expensive watches that have a quartz movement inside. Like the new Cartier Santos for example, or a Grand Seiko with 9F movement.Our question today comes from Mark from Germany.Does It Make Sense To Spend So Much On A Quartz Watch?Mark is not entirely new to collecting watches, but the fact that certain high-end watch brands continue (or start to) offer watches with quartz movements confuse him. Lets have a look at his letter (translated from German):Dear Fratello team,It is with great pleasure that I read your You Asked Us topics on the magazine, it gives valuable insights to collectors like me. I am not an expert yet, but also not a novice collector. However, when looking at the Cartier novelty from this year at SIHH or one of your reviews of the Grand Seiko with quartz movement, I am a bit confused. I was always taught that quartz movements are not to be taken seriously when it comes to expensive watches. Yet the finish shown on the Grand Seiko quartz movements is something that cant be ignored. How do you feel about luxury watches with quartz movements? Does it make sense to spend so much money on a watch with a quartz movement?Best,MarkIn order to answer Marks question in the best way possible, lets have a look at some of the reasons why a quartz movement can be interesting.FunctionalityJust to be clear, I dont think theres anything wrong with a quartz watch. The fact that a designer watch (Daniel Wellington, CK, Fossil, Diesel etc.) watch has a quartz movement is a logical thing, as it has much to do with price. However, there are also watches with a mechanical movement that I also dont take very seriously. So for starters, I would say that you have to judge the watch as such, not only based on the fact that it has a quartz movement.