There Are Pandas, and Then There Are Pandas.
And this isn't either of them! The Pandas we're talking about here, are watches, not bears. And what got me thinking about them (again) was a link posted this morning by @cm.rook who pointed a few of us to the very attractive (and not terribly priced) Yema "Rallygraph" Panda which, in it's most traditional arrangement, looks like the one on the left, but can also be had in the version on the right: The model on the left is a true Panda, while the model on the right is called a reverse Panda. The reason for that distinction is clear--Panda bears, only come in the first arrangement. Now at this point, everyone should be thinking about the most well-know Panda, The Rolex Panda, which is actually a Daytona, and among Rolex Daytonas, the most famous of which is the Paul Newman Daytona, which was famous first, because it was Paul's, and second because it sold at auction for $17.8 million (US Dollars). The story of that auction is well-known so I'll only...
Nov 8, 2019
For the uninitiated, some more info. Unlike (most) quartz watches that beat / tick once every second, mechanical movements usually tick at a faster rate. This results in a smoother movement of the second hand, what people tend to call the "sweeping seconds hand". I've only seen three different rates at which the second hand moves - 21,600 beats per hour (bph), 28,600 bph, and 36,000 bph. There must be more, but I haven't come across them yet. What that basically means is that the second hand ticks six / eight / ten times each second. I feel this is something that new mechanical buyers should know about.
Some other stuff with some science / mechanics terms thrown in to make me look really intelligent:
Adding to the list of components, The *movement*. This is the heart and soul of your watch. When you say a watch is quartz vs mechanical, you are referring to this "movement", which is the engine that rotates the hands of your watch. Quartz movements run on battery power which charges the quartz crystal. Quartz is a substance that exhibits the piezoelectric effect, that is if pressure is applied to it then it generates electricity. So the crystal vibrates when a current is passed through it (inverse piezoelectric effect), and this kinetic energy is used to rotate the gears. In the case of mechanical movements, the power comes from a spring mechanism. A spring is "loaded", meaning, some torque is applied to it, and it stores some potential energy. This energy is used to drive a mechanical watch, and once this spring is completely depleted of its potential energy (ie the spring is completely unwound), you will need to wind the movement again.
Winding mechanism. In mechanical watches, you can have two types of winding mechanisms: hand wound, or automatic. As stated above, mechanical watches run on spring power. On some movements, you rotate the crown to wind the spring. On others, you would have a rotor that moves automatically as you move your hand. This rotor's kinetic energy is used to wind the spring and rack up potential energy in the spring which is eventually used to drive the watch. Because of this these watches are called "automatic", because once wound they will automatically stay wound as long as you keep them on your wrist.
Hacking movement: A hacking movement is one where the second hand stops when you pull the crown out to set the time. Most quartz watches, in fact all quartz watches that I know of, have hacking movements. It's not that uncommon to find non-hacking movements in mechanical watches, though, so that's something to consider too.
I hope this helps, and hope I was clear. I'm not too good with being concise, though.
Oh well.