text: jewels in a watch?? i've just bought a swatch, and on the back it says patented water-resistant...... four(4) jewels, i also went on e-bay to look at watches and found some realy old (50's/60's) watches with 17 and 23 jewels in them, i guessing the jewels aren't diamonds or emeralds etc so what are they? and why are they in the watch? jewels are used as the bearing surfaces for pivot points and gear axles. they are tiny precious stones. because they are so hard they do not require lubrication when polished.   in mechanical watches there were always an odd number of jewels due to the single jewel in the escapement. modern crystal oscillator types have no escapement so the low even number of jewels is because of the reduced number of pivots in the watch compared to old gear driven watches where jewels are used in pairs plus one for the escapement. more jewels usually means a higher quality and more accurate watch.