wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (01/04/85)
I think this might be best directed to a chemist, so I'm trying the general distribution selected to see if it reaches someone knowledgeable about the subject: I recently saw an ad in the New Yorker magazine for RADO watches, of Switzerland, which was lauding their "scratchproof" case made of sapphire crystal. They illustrate it as being un-marrable by a file, due to the hard surface. Now, these watches cost $850 up, which I find to be a ridiculous sum to pay for a watch (and I know that there are much more expensive ones available, too, for conspicious consumption purposes). I wouldn't want to pay more for a watch than I cn afford to lose (the one I'm now wearing cost $3.99, I think...) (down with "dress for success"!). Anyway... I'm writing this because I want to find out how expensive such a sapphire crystal really is. The idea of the sapphire unscratchable crystal seeems a good one. I know that such crystals are being produced synthetically for many purposes, and I'm wondering what they actually cost. I would think that they would be used for instrument windows and various purposes that polished natural quartz crystals used to be used for, so I would think they would be available commercially in some standard size ranges as catalog items from a number of vendors. Am I right in this supposition? What cost range are we speaking of? I would think a watch crystal would need a blank about 3 cm on a side (square or thereabouts), so nothing larger would be required. So, is such a raw crystal a 10-cent item? a $10 item? $100? As you can see, I have no idea. I would assume a large part of the final cost will be the labor to polish and shape this hard material into final form, but I am trying to discover if it would be feasible to put such a sensible cystal on a $100 watch, or even a cheaper one. Thanks for your help! Regards, Will Martin USENET: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin or ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA