Seiko dominated the 1960s with three historical firsts in style and technical innovation

Borna Bošnjak

It’s no secret that we at Time+Tide love Seiko – and that rings true for the majority of watch enthusiasts around. Since the turn of the millennium, much of this love is thanks to the brand’s unique positioning, as it’s been able to offer great value across a wide-ranging price spectrum. You’d be hard-pressed to find a decade since the brand’s founding that hasn’t yielded an icon of some sort, but the 1960s stand apart from the rest as the period where Seiko truly dominated across multiple fronts. Coming off the back of the tool watch renaissance of the 1950s, the ’60s were all about advancements in movement technology, whether it be mechanical, quartz, or electric. For Seiko, however, there was also the question of luxury. Up until the early ’60s, the brand’s sub-collections weren’t nearly as consolidated as they are today, and no single model stood out as the very best Seiko has to offer. That would change come 1960, signifying the beginning of a dominant period. Here’s what happened.

Grand Seiko – Japan’s first luxury watch

Let’s start just before 1960. In the years leading up to it, Suwa Seikosha presented three significant collections. The 1956 Marvel, 1958 Lord Marvel, and 1959 Crown. The Marvel was the very first watch produced in-house by Suwa Seikosha, still stemming from a time when it competed with sister company Daini. This game of one-upmanship continued throughout the late ’50s with the Daini Cronos, then the famous Suwa Lord Marvel, which would serve as the base for the more elegant Crown. All of these had their own particular benefits, with incremental upgrades in each new model, culminating with the late 1959 Seiko Crown Special models that bear striking resemblance to the Grand Seiko First.

Come 1960, Seiko decided to unify them all under the Grand Seiko model name, taking the Calibre 341 from the Crown Special and upgrading it with a fine-adjustment regulator and two more barrel jewels. This was the result – the Grand Seiko J14070, notable for its embossed logo and Japan’s first chronometer certified by the long-windedly named Bureaux Officiels de Contrôle de la Marche des Montres. Made by Suwa, the 3180 calibre was capable of accuracy of +12/-3 seconds per day, with a 45-hour power reserve, and its special performance was noted by the eight-pointed star on the dial.

But the majority of the Grand Seiko Firsts were 14k gold-capped cases, and Seiko still had a bone to pick with the big Swiss manufacturers. Along with the excellent chronometric performance, Seiko confirmed its luxury status with very few platinum-cased Grand Seiko First variants. These are exceedingly rare, with not even Seiko able to confirm exact production dates or numbers. What it did do, however, is put Seiko on the map as a capable manufacturer of true luxury watches for the first time.

Over the next decade, Daini Seikosha would once again pipe up in an attempt to compete with Suwa’s Grand Seiko, creating King Seiko in response. A whole other article could be written about the numerous Grand Seiko (produced by both Daini and Suwa) and King Seiko models made over the years, including the iconic 44GS developed from the 44KS King Seiko, but the pinnacle of this competition were undoubtedly the V.F.A. models. Rated at +/- 1 minute per month, the best Very Fine Adjusted movements of the late ’60s could rival Grand Seiko’s modern mechanical movements.

Speedtimer 6139 – the first automatic chronograph

While the two big Seiko factories were occupied with outdoing each other and the Swiss at producing ultra-accurate chronometers, a particular sector of the Suwa factory was hard at work trying to produce a world-first. 1964 would see the first Japanese chronograph to market in the Seiko Crown Chronograph, developed by Toshihiko Ohki. Thanks to the Crown Chronograph’s success at the 1964 Olympics, he was commissioned to design a new, automatic variant, and the 61 series was born. At the same time, over in Switzerland, there were folks with a similar idea. A consortium of Swiss consisting of Heuer-Leonidas, Breitling, Buren-Hamilton, and Dubois Dépraz were working on a modular, micro-rotor powered chronograph dubbed the Chronomatic, while Zenith independently developed the movement that would become “El Primero”.

Now part of history, Zenith was the first to unveil its creation to the world in January of 1969, pipping the Chronomatic by two short months. According to an internal Seiko report, the 6139 was slated to be presented in May, but that doesn’t tell the full story. Several 6139-powered watches have cropped up over the last 50 years with serial production numbers dating them to January 1969, the same time Zenith introduced its movement. Moreover, some 6139 dials have production dates as early as October 1968.

So, who won? In truth, it doesn’t really matter, for several reasons. First of all, stories just like these are what make watches so interesting, and the fact that the 6139 is still hugely underappreciated by the larger collecting community means the average collector like myself can actually afford one. Aside from the sentimental stuff, the proof of the 6139’s technological superiority is in its construction. Ohki redefined the vertical clutch mechanism specially for this watch, which went on to be the go-to choice for high-end chronographs, and informed Frederic Piguet in manufacturing the 1185 chronograph that formed the base of numerous Audemars Piguet, Vacheron Constantin, and Blancpain movements.

Astron – the first quartz watch

Of course, we end with the big one, and potentially the greatest shift in watchmaking ideology in history. On Christmas Day, 1969, Seiko presented the Astron 35SQ. Made by Suwa Seikosha and priced at US$1,250 (equivalent to almost US$11,000 today), its Seiko 35A stepper motor movement was capable of accuracies of +/-5 seconds per month. For comparison, everyday mechanical watches today are expected to run within 20 seconds per day. 

As integrated circuit technology had not advanced to a satisfactory level yet, these movements featured hand-soldered components, and was the result of a decade-long project that started with a quartz clock the size of a closet needing to be sized down. Though often overlooked, attempts like the CEH Beta 21 and Longines Ultra-Quartz (actually the first production quartz watch) were simply inferior to Seiko’s technology. The result, of course, was the quartz crisis kicking off, which changed the paradigm of luxury watchmaking forever.