Japanese watchmaking

In the 1880s Japanese dealers bought their imported clocks and watches from foreign trading houses in the open ports, such as Yokohama and Kobe, while small makers in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya studied Western pocket watches and made versions of their own.¹

The industry grew from dealers who turned to manufacturing. Kintaro Hattori, a Tokyo importer, opened the Seikosha factory in 1892 and equipped it with American machinery; in 1905 he wrote that Japanese clockmaking lagged the West for want of modern machines and mechanical knowledge, and that technical schools were the remedy.^6, 7

Seiko’s Laurel wristwatch appeared in 1913 and the SEIKO brand in 1924. Citizen began in 1918 as a research institute set up to make watches in Japan, and its 1924 pocket watch went on sale when most watches sold in the country were still imported.^2, 8, 9

The trade began in Tokyo: Hattori’s shop in Kyobashi and then Ginza, his factory in Honjo, and Citizen’s Tanashi factory of 1936. Casio started in Mitaka, Tokyo, in 1946.^{1, 6, 9, 10}

Suwa, in Nagano, became the second centre. Daini Seikosha had a plant there, which Daiwa Kogyo took over in 1959 as Suwa Seikosha, today Seiko Epson. Epson still has its head office in Suwa and plants across Nagano, and its Shinshu Watch Studio makes high-end quartz and Spring Drive watches, Grand Seiko’s among them.^{8, 11, 12, 13, 14}

Shizukuishi, in Iwate, is the third. Seiko opened a studio for mechanical watches there in 2004, and in 2020 Grand Seiko Studio Shizukuishi opened on a manufacturing site of Morioka Seiko Instruments.^{8, 16, 17}

After the war Seiko stopped copying foreign watches and designed its own, beginning with the Marvel of 1956, then aimed at the Swiss chronometer standard with Grand Seiko in 1960.^3, 18

Seiko’s two factories entered the observatory competitions in Switzerland from 1964. They placed second and third for series of movements at Neuchâtel in 1967, and at Geneva in 1968 Suwa Seikosha led the mechanical wristwatches, behind three Swiss quartz watches. The contests themselves are on the Chronometry and certification page.^{3, 16, 18}

Seiko’s Quartz Astron went on sale on December 25, 1969, and Seiko opened much of its quartz patent portfolio to other makers. Seiko says Japanese companies came out of the decade leading the market for watch movements, sold to assemblers who no longer had to make their own. The Swiss side is the The quartz crisis.^{4, 19, 20}

Others took electronics their own way. Casio, a calculator maker, began making watches in 1974 with a digital quartz watch built on its calculator chips; Citizen released a light-powered analogue quartz watch in 1976.^21, 22

Seiko’s history is kept at the Seiko Museum Ginza, which moved to Ginza in 2020 and added a Grand Seiko Museum in 2024. In 2014 the Quartz Astron was registered as Mechanical Engineering Heritage of Japan.^4, 8, 11