text: Jewels are used as the bearing surfaces for pivot points and gear axles. They are tiny precious stones.\nBecause they are so hard they do not require lubrication when polished.  \nIn 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.\nMore jewels usually means a higher quality and more accurate watch.