A Rare Grand Seiko Exhibition From Tokyo Is Now on View in Manhattan
Seiko and Grand Seiko enthusiasts in the New York area have been given an early present this season. For the first time, several historical models have been loaned out by the Seiko Museum in Tokyo for the “The Evolution of Seiko and Grand Seiko” exhibition in partnership between Grand Seiko of America and the Horological Society of New York.
Twenty-five clocks, watches and sports timers have been carefully transported from Japan to New York to illustrate the history of Seiko and Grand Seiko and to share an appreciation of the artistry and engineering that have been a hallmark of Seiko and Grand Seiko from the company’s inception in the late 19th century.
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There should be something for everyone on display whether they have a general interest in the history of Seiko or a fascination with particular niche of their back catalog. However, not all the watches will be the expected fan favorites—for example, there is no original 44GS on display, no Pogue, and no Gyro Marvel, all notable watches in the Seiko story. But there are enough hits to satisfy most Seiko fans. For many, I suspect this is the first chance to see some of the models on display.
The exhibition is on from now until December—the exact closing date has not yet been confirmed. There is an accompanying catalog available at the society or online for $20, or it can be downloaded for free from the Society’s website. The watches on display are an excellent excuse to visit the Horological Society regardless. The library contains hundreds of books on horology that any member of the public can peruse at leisure or for serious research. Go for the watches and stay for the books.
Inro Wadokei Timepieces
The exhibition starts with two Wadokei Inro or Japanese pocket watches from the 19th century. Wadokei timepeices are fascinating because they were made to display traditional Japanese time. Traditional Japanese, or seasonal time, divides each day into two sets of six equal hours. One set of hours is for the day, between sunrise and sunset and the other is for the night hours from sunset to sunrise. Since sunrise and sunset vary daily as the seasons progress, the length of each day-hour and night-hour are not the same and they also change every day!
It’s as if our modern, regular hours would be a different number of minutes during the day, compared to the night, and the hours would change the next day and the next day. Sometimes a day-hour might be shorter than a night-hour, and sometimes it might be longer.
To account for such seasonal time variations in a clock—a mechanism that by design ticks at the same rate every day using fixed gear ratios—the numerals on a circular dial must move. A little closer together or a little further apart each day and each night. Look closely beneath the glass of the timepieces and you can see the indented tracks the numerals move within to account for the changing length of the hours.
The Wadokei clocks play a fundamental part in Seiko’s history. Seasonal time fell out of favor in Japan at the beginning of the more technologically ambitious Meiji period in 1868 and was completely abandoned by 1872 with the adoption of Western time and the Gregorian calendar. Kintaro Hattori established K. Hattori & Co. (now the Seiko Corporation) in 1881 to sell and repair the newly imported Western clocks and watches. Without the move away from Wadokei clocks, the Seiko or Grand Seiko that we know today may not have existed.
Early Days
The exhibition contains several watches from Seiko’s early period. At this time the company was known as Seikosha, meaning ‘house of equisite workmanship’ and the exhibition has a number of pocket watches and early wristwatches branded as such. Highlights include the Seikosha Laurel which was the first wristwatch produced in Japan, using a Swiss-designed movement made under license. The diminutive 28mm watch features a hand painted enamel dial, blued hands, and a seconds sub-dial at six o’clock.
The Move Towards Luxury
Moving ahead to the 1950s, Seiko as the company was now called, had ambitions to build more luxurious watches. The exhibition highlights this period with three important watches that ultimately lead to the creation of the first Grand Seiko in 1960. There is an example of the first Seiko Lord Marvel from 1959 which marked Seiko’s first real attempt at elevating its watches to a luxury level.
There is also an example of a 1959 Seiko Crown which would provide the basis for the movement to be included in the first Grand Seiko, the 3180-powered J14070, or Grand Seiko Chronometer. The exhibition contains a lovely example with an excellently preserved case and without the dial damage that often afflicts this model.
The first Grand Seiko model has none of the Zaratsu polishing or flat facets we are used to seeing on contemporary Grand Seiko models. For those, you will need to move further along the cabinet and examine the 45GS on display. Its case shape will be familiar to anyone with an interest in modern Grand Seiko. The 45GS is the first of two watches in the exhibition containing the ground-breaking hi-beat, 36,000 vibrations per hour, manually wound caliber 45. The second example is a gold-plated King Seiko; a brand supposedly slightly below the quality of the Grand Seiko but the 45 movement really blurred that line, being of such a high quality, it was featured in both model lines.
The World’s First Quartz Watch
The star of the show as far as the museum is concerned is probably the 1969 35SQ Quartz Astron—the world’s first commercially available quartz wristwatch. Famously launched on Christmas Day in Tokyo’s Ginza district a week before the end of the decade, it was to fundamentally change the industry, being the first step on a journey that would democratize precise timekeeping for the masses, but ultimately lead to the decimation of the mechanical watchmaking industry.
The watch is stunning, with its solid 18-karat gold case with a Florentine finish, gold hands and gold dial. These watches were phenomenally expensive at the time. Several hundred were made and sold at a price of 450,000 yen, supposedly more than a Toyota Corolla at the time! The Quartz Astron was far removed from the cheap quartz watches that would eventually flood the market once the technology was mastered for mass production.
Seiko turned to Grand Seiko for the inspiration for the case of the Astron. A very similar case had been used for the Grand Seiko Astronomical Observatory Chronometers (AOC) being produced at the same time. Both were symbols and celebrations of precision timekeeping, one mechanical the other electronic, but while the mechanical AOC was precise to two seconds per day, the Quartz Astron was precise to five seconds per month.
Before leaving the mid-century models completely, the 1971 Grand Seiko 56GS in 18-karat gold is worth examining. Here you will find the inspiration for the modern Grand Seiko SBGA211 “snowflake” dial, but this time rendered in solid gold.
Watches for the 21st Century
The final watches on display link the watches of the past with the current Seiko and Grand Seiko lines. First, we have the SBWA001, better known as the first Seiko using the innovative hybrid quartz-mechanical Spring Drive movement.
The watch is powered by a mainspring just like a mechanical watch and has a very similar gear train. In place of a discrete escapement controlled by an oscillating balance wheel, there is a rotating glide wheel that is electrically braked by magnets controlled using a quartz oscillator. This arrangement leads to a constant rotation of the timing element rather than the back-and-forth of the balance wheel. This in turn leads to the characteristic constant sweep of the Spring Drive movement.
The final watch on display is a modern day Astron complete with its GPS-enabled, solar powered movement. The 2012 Seiko Astron Kintaro Hattori limited edition was released to celebrate the 120th anniversary of the company. This watch represents the final word on precision, constantly setting its time from the timing signals sent by the worldwide chain of low orbiting GPS satellites.
Getting There
The Horological Society is located on 44th street, between Times Square and Grand Central, so getting there is straightforward. Located on the 5th floor, the watches are on display in exhibition cases around the Society’s Jost Bürgi library. Admission is free and the library is open between 10am and 5pm every weekday.
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