I have to write in defense of mechanical timepieces. My dad was a watchmaker for many years and I got drafted to wind all the watches daily. It was not at all unusual for a mechanical piece to test out at better than 30 seconds a month. In fact, old late 1800 Waltham railroad pocket watches could do this routinely.
Now, for GPS purposes that is not good enough, but for human time that is more than good enough. I certainly do not run my life on even the accuracy of a pocket watch, let alone some atomic clock. Another thing, I have watches in my possession that are still keeping good time that are over 50 years old. I have had NO quartz watch that has lived over two years.
To address the "accuracy" of inexpensive quartz watches I have to submit the observation that of the 8 electronic clocks in my house no two agree on the time. Once set they start to drift from each other in a few weeks. I brought up the observation to a jeweler friend of mine and he said "Yes, we notice that too. We reset them monthly." Sounds like the average electronic timepiece is about as accurate as the mechanical ones to me.
This is not to excuse the obscene prices that some watches are going for nowadays; the pricing is just insane to me. Then again...so is the high end of audio.
