My Irrational Love of Mechanical Watches

I love mechanical watches.  I've never really been able to explain it, but I'm going to try here, but I'll probably just come up with a bunch of rationalizations.  Here ' goes.

• They require no consumables.  You don't need to take them to some drug store to have the battery replaced.  This will come in handy when you need to know how long you have until dark so you can get back to your base camp in safety when being hunted by flesh eating hoards of the undead.
• They tick.  As one gets older, there is some comfort in hearing your watch through your pillow.
• ...Uhm
• Er...

Ok, that didn't work.  Two realish reasons are all I could come up with.  I will have to accept the fact that it is just an aesthetic preference.

I can't claim that there is any kind of simple elegance.  They're very complicated mechanisms.  Now days they are using synthetic sapphires and rubies in them.  While those are cheap to make, there is something decidedly inelegant about creating a high tech infrastructure for a low tech product.

While accurate enough for any normal life stuff, they don't come close to quartz watches for accuracy.

They're not cheap.  If you want to impress the Joneses, you can spend tens of thousands of dollars on one.   But you can also spend that amount on a quartz model and get the same social climbing cred.  A decent mid-range mechanical will cost about $500.00.  A good quartz can be had for $150.00.

So, I guess I have to confess a preference for stupid design here.

But Damn, there is just something insanely cool about getting the kind of accuracy and reliability that they do from springs, levers and gears.