[_skel]

Ironically there has never been a better time to buy an affordable mechanical watch than now.

Quartz won because the mechanical watches that most people could afford in the 1970s were very inaccurate. A cheap quartz watch was more accurate than any mechanical watch and anybody could afford one by the late 1970s -- although they were very expensive at first.

Affordable mechanical watches on the market today are much more accurate than they used to be, and they are perfectly good for everyday use.

[vernie]

They're still nowhere near as accurate as quartz, even on the high end, and accuracy also varies depending on the orientation of the watch.

[Tepix]

I like Seiko's spring drive. It's an ingenious mix of mechanical and electric drive and it's quite accurate. My favourite part is the continuous motion of the seconds hand.

They're not very cheap, unfortunately.

[m_mueller]

I also really like Seiko's watch face design in general, even for the cheap quartz lines, and I'm saying this as a Swiss.

[KyleBrandt]

Yes, the spring drive is really neat. it was designed at the time when mechanical watches seemed "doomed" to quartz so neat historically as well.

The spring drives are "Grand Seiko", so tend to be 3k+ US.

[SamReidHughes]

The Zenith Defy Lab watch has accuracy of -0.5/+0.5 seconds per day, which matches and/or beats quartz watches (that aren't thermocompensated). Rolexes, which have a classical movement design, are pretty close, promising -2/+2 spd. Quartz watches' accuracy also varies depending on orientation, for what it's worth. (It has an effect on the order of 1-2 seconds per year.) Related EEVBlog link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zILwgQhjC_Q

[twblalock]

That will always be true, but they are accurate enough for daily use. A 1970s mechanical Timex could gain or lose a few minutes a day. If you go a week without setting it the watch would be way off.