Seiko

Kintaro Hattori opened a watch and clock shop in Tokyo in 1881, aged twenty-one, and began manufacturing under the name Seikosha — roughly, house of exquisite workmanship — in 1892. The Seiko name appeared on watches from 1924.

The company's significance is that it broke the Swiss monopoly twice. First on precision: Seiko was appointed official timekeeper of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and built the quartz chronometers and printing timers to do it, and in the 1960s its movements placed highly at the Neuchâtel and Geneva observatory trials against the best Swiss houses.

Then on technology. On Christmas Day 1969 Seiko released the Astron, the world's first quartz wristwatch, accurate to five seconds a month where mechanical watches managed that per day. The consequences for Switzerland were catastrophic — employment in the Swiss industry fell by roughly two-thirds over the following decade. Seiko deliberately did not enforce its quartz patents, allowing the technology to spread.

The same year it produced the 6139, among the first automatic chronographs, and it has since introduced Kinetic, Spring Drive — a hybrid regulating a mechanical mainspring electronically, giving a perfectly gliding seconds hand — and its own dive and field lines.

Seiko remains fully vertically integrated, making its own hairsprings, quartz crystals, and even the Zaratsu-polished cases, at price points from under a hundred pounds upward.

Seiko holds 162 models, from £110 to £3,550. Half cost less than £400, and a quarter less than £299. 115 of 162 are automatic. 85 are stocked by more than one retailer, giving 265 offers in total. Prices are checked nightly against the retailers’ own feeds.

1881

Kintaro Hattori opens his Tokyo shop.

1924

The first watches carry the Seiko name.

1964

Official timekeeper of the Tokyo Olympics.

1969

The Astron becomes the first quartz wristwatch.

1999

Spring Drive enters production.