When buying a watch it is very important to assess what type of crystal it has. There are certain advantages and disadvantages of each material. However, as you'll see later on, there are reasons why some materials are cheap and are used in low quality watches and others are quite expensive and are used exclusively in high quality watches.
A watch is more than an item which only shows time. It's a precious masterpiece which should be looked after. Besides, when you take good care of your watch, it'll keep ticking for decades. It then becomes a companion for life.
In the early days luminous watch dials were used due to a very practical reason – soldiers needed to know time even at night. However, luminescence that we know today is far from the one used in the past.
You buy a new watch and see that it has 50M written on its dial. Does this mean that you can actually take it 50 meters (~165 feet) below water surface? It would be quite handy, right? Not so fast! You would actually permanently damage your precious time piece.
Automatic watches are attractive, expensive and highly valuable. They are unique and different from other types of watches and contain complex mechanical components. Due to these qualities, you have to afford them more care and attention.
We are all fascinated by fine timepieces, but when trying to acquire one the information out there about different brands and models can get technical and overwhelming. But this shouldn’t be the case if you understand the fundamental differences between watches as explained below.