Seiko

KIH
[Purist]
12044

• Show profile
• Show other posts

Part 2 - SEIKO history and Wa-Dokei (Historical Japanese Clock) Collections

Part 2 - SEIKO history and Wa-Dokei (Historical Japanese Clock) Collections

The 2nd floor has two sections, (1) SEIKO history, and (2) SEIKO's Wa-Dokei (Japanese historical clock) collection.

(1) SEIKO history with historical timepieces.


Founded in 1881 (last year was its 130th Anniversary) by Kintaro Hattori - first, as clock repair shop, then start making its own clocks.  Set up its manufacturing factory (Seikosha).  Went on to the watches by establishing Daini (second) Seikosha....  "Seiko" means, again, "precision" or "precision manufacturing".


What do you think this is?




This is the melted pocket watches, shaped like a mountain, by the fire caused by the Kanto Great Earthquake on September 1, 1923.



These were mostly what customers asked Hattori to repair...




And this ad on the paper says, merely after two months of the quake, "Hattori now resumes its operation and if anyone who asked us to repair their pocket watches or clocks, please come forward with or without the receipt.  We will replace them with the new ones."  As a result, in total 1500 new pocket watches were given to the customers.




Here is the room of the early days of Hattori/SEIKO clocks, and then modern clocks as well.













SEIKO's first Alarm Clock (1899)




German Alarm Clocks were dominant in Europe (before 1915), but were made with nickel plated steel parts and many were already rusty when they arrive at the wholesaler in other European countries.  SEIKO made Alarm Clocks with nickel plated brass parts and they were fine even after the long voyage from Japan to Europe, so it got quite popular, particularly in UK and France, back then ca. 1915).



The room for the history of SEIKO with historical pocket watches and wrist watches.



SEIKO's first pocket watch "Timekeeper" (1895)



"Excellent" (1899)



"Empire" (1909)



Laurel! (1913)









The first wrist watch with the brand name "SEIKO" (1924).









The mechanism SEIKO invented - called "magic lever" to enable the bi-directional rotor automatic movement.




Some drool-worthy pieces, please....












The Room for the pursuit for precision/ accuracy from 1960s ~



Observatoire Astronomique et Chronometrique Bulletin de Marche (Observaroty Chronometer Certificate) in late 1960s, and the actual movements which passed the test and certified.




 

Intrigued by these "Observatory Chronometer"?
Please read my other article on it here: general.watchprosite.com s=0


These are the historical Grand Seiko.



GS Certificate back then...




VFA in 69 was the pinnacle of the "Old" GS...

 

First 36000 vph watch - Lord Marvel (1967)

There is an interesting video about SEIKO's Challenge to High Beat and even Higher Beat (a bit longish) shown in the museum (original video file provided by SEIKO - copyrighted): 

King Seiko Chronometer (1972)

Historical Divers' Watches

IEEE Milestone award, presented in 2004, for SEIKO's first quartz wristwatch in 1969.



Quartz VFA (1974)



Relatively modern models corner.













Real wrist watch....

 

Launched at Basel 2010

"Spacewalk" (2010)







The latest one - GPS SOLOR ASTRON (to start shipping Sep. 2012)




Still a bit gigantic and thick....




Other SEIKO's historical and current products:
Record (LP or Vinyl)  Player (1921)




Balance spring adjusting tool.



All made by SEIKO from Electronic Dictionaries to Optical lenses.



Yes, lenses!



For glasses...



And mobile phones and portable Wi-Fi router, as well....




And small motor parts for HDD.....




(2) Wa-Dokei Collections

What is Wa-Dokei? ("Wa" typically means Japanese and "Dokei" means clock or watch)
Good question.  While Japan was isolated from other parts of the world, the sense of time evolved in a slightly different way.  People in the Edo era (1600 to 1867) express the time with the name of the 12 animals (same as 12 animal years as seen in some Asian countries including Japan, China, etc.).  And 6 were defined for the day time and another 6 were for night time.  Yes, the length of the time changes by the season.  Only on the equinox days, each "animal" hour was today's 2 hours.  In summer, daytime hour was longer and in winter, it was shorter.

FYI: Wa-Watch or Temporal Hour Watch by Masahiro Kikuno, 2011 AHCI Candidate: www.masahirokikuno.jp /
(This year's model by him: basel.watchprosite.com=)


The SEIKO museum had had hundreds of these Wa-Dokei in the temperature/ humidity tightly controlled storage room in the building, but after renovation, they decided to display some of them in the same controlled room on the exhibit floor.



Alarm Lantern Clock with double foliot balances (late Edo era)




This is from the relatively later era because this has double balance whose speed can be adjusted by the placement of the weight (inner or outer) and the "speed of the time" change automatically when it becomes night or day by switching over to another balance.
Note - "day" means when it becomes a bit bright, NOT sunrise, and "night" means when it is completely dark, NOT sunset.  And the adjustment of the weight was done by the "officer in charge" almost everyday.




How the balance works....





This one (the center one) is called "Pillar Clock".  The weight falls in about 24 hours and as you see the distance of the index changes as it goes down.  This "interval" is adjusted according to the season.




Numbers as well as the "12 animals" are inscribed on the dial (this is the early model as it has only one balance).




Portable Wa-Dokei (pocket watch) in the Maki-E case (Edo era - mid to late 19th century).



==============================================================================

That is it.  Sorry for a bit longish report.  Again, if and when you visit Tokyo, this place would be an interesting experience.

Thanks again:
Mr. Suzuki, Mr. Mukoyama - SEIKO Muserum
Mr. Matsumoto, Ms. Naruse - SEIKO Watch PR Department


Thank you for reading.  Hope you enjoyed it.

Best,
Ken

Site Info.