gerald.d
140
Just a couple of clarifications
Aug 10, 2018,20:28 PM
Have to say I love these early quartz models - I seem to be "accidentally" building up quite a collection of them, including an example of this reference.
A couple of points on the general commentary though...
The mechanical VFA's were guaranteed to +/- 1 minute per month, not +/- 30 seconds.
Regarding the pricing compared to cars, this is something that we see quoted quite a lot, but I actually think in this case it simply isn't correct.
I believe it is correct that the price of this watch when it came out was 150,000 Yen (I don't have my catalogues with me at the moment). However, whilst I can't find any historical data on the price of cars in Japan specifically, the average price of a car in the US in 1970 was $3,450, and the exchange rate back then was 300 yen to the dollar.
So the average price of a car in the US was actually just a little in excess of 1 million Yen. Even if we assume a Camry-equivalent car was half that (note - there was no Toyota Camry in 1972, the name Camry was first used on a Toyota in 1979), it's still way off. For reference, a Ford Pinto was $2,000 in 1972.
Kind regards,
Gerald.