Seiko

 By Bruce Shawkey

Most people think of Seiko as a modern watch. You'd be surprised to learn they go all the way back to 1881. 

In 1881, Seiko founder Kintarō Hattori (left) opened a watch and jewelry shop called "K. Hattori" in Tokyo. Kintarō Hattori had been working as clockmaker apprentice since the age of 13, with multiple stints in different watch shops.  Over the years, Hattori developed a close partnership with multiple foreign trading firms, including Favre-Brandt, F. Perregaux & Co., and others aallowing him to obtain exclusive imported timepieces and machinery, which was not available elsewhere at that time.

Hattori's shop became increasingly popular due to the rarity of the imported watches the shop was selling, which couldn't be found anywhere else in Japan. The growing success allowed him to relocate the company to the main street of Ginza (Tokyo), still the epicenter of commerce in Japan to this day.

In 1892, Hattori began to produce clocks under the name Seikosha, meaning, roughly, "House of Exquisite Workmanship." According to Seiko's official company history, titled A Journey In Time: The Remarkable Story of Seiko (2003), Seiko is a Japanese word meaning "exquisite."  Seiko launched its first in-house pocket watch, the Timekeeper, in 1895; the first Japanese-made wristwatch.n 1913 (right).

  In order to avoid an ill omen believed to be associated with the word "GLORY" in Japanese, the Seikosha company changed its trade mark to "Seiko" in 1924.

1930 to 1990

Military watches produced for Japanese troops during World War II were manufactured by Seiko, which by 1938, produced 1.2 million timepieces a year. The scarcity of raw materials during the war diverted much of Seiko's production to on-board instruments for military aircraft and ships. Production was halted in 1941, due to WWII. A surviving example is shown at left. The watches fairly rare; some were brought to America as war trophies.

Here's a rare, post-WWII watch from a  1951 issue of Europa Star magazine: 

1951 was also the year Seiko broadcast its first radio commercial in Japan. In 1956, Seiko launched Japan's first automatic wristwatch, the Automatic (below, left).

 The retail price at the time was 13,500 yen (about $94), more than three times the price of men's wristwatches, which were generally in the 4,000 yen range ($24). In 1958, Seiko developed the "Dia-Shock" anti-shock device. In 1959, Seiko launched the Gyro Marvel, which featured a revolutionary self-winding mechanism. In 1960, Seiko released the Grand Seiko, which claimed to be the most accurate wristwatch in the world.

Seiko quickly developed quartz technology in preparation for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, and in 1963 launched the Seiko Crystal Chronometer. Seiko launched Japan's first chronograph wristwatch, the Crown Chronograph, in 1964, Japan's first world time wristwatch in the same year, and Japan's first diver's wristwatch in 1965. In 1967, Japan's first diver's watch with 300m water resistance was launched.

Seiko's first commercial quartz watch, the Astron (right), was launched in 1969. It cost the same as a medium-sized car. 

Since the 1970s, Seiko has introduced a variety of wristwatches with various world firsts:

* in 1973, Seiko introduced the world's first wristwatch with a LCD display capable of displaying six digits for hours, minutes and seconds;

* in 1975, Seiko introduced the world's first digital watch with a stopwatch function;

* In 1978, Seiko introduced the world's first quartz diver's watch with a water resistance of 600 meters;

        * In 1982, the world's first wristwatch with a television (below);

* In 1983, the world's first wristwatch with a record-and-play function and an analog quartz chronograph (left);

* In 1984, the world's first wristwatch computer below, right).

In 1986, Baselworld allowed non-European manufacturers to participate, and Seiko began exhibiting that year.

In 1988, Seiko invented the world's first wristwatch with an innovative mechanism called "Auto Quartz", in which a rotating oscillating weight rotates in response to the wearer's arm movements, generating electricity to power the quartz. This mechanism was developed with the aim of creating a quartz watch that does not require battery replacement. In 1991, to increase popularity, the watcheswere relaunched "Seiko Kinetic." (left)

Here is a Seiko watch catalog from 1932

Check out those wristwatch designs. Direct copies of American designs by Hamilton and Elgin ... Coronado, etc.

Octo

 By Bruce Shawkey

Found these nice images of Octo watch in the June 1956 issue of Europa Star, Latin America edition: 

Octo was a Swiss watch and clock brand active from at least 1908 through the late 1960s. It was best known for a range of 8-day movement (thus the name) but also produced other watch models. The company was founded by Ulysse Tolck in the city Fleurier. Here are some images of Octo watches over the years:

LIP

By Bruce Shawkey

LIP watch company has quite an interesting history. The roots of the company go all the way back to 

1867 when Emmanuel Isaac Lipmann (right, born 1844, died 1913), established a company selling watchmaking supplies. 

 In October 1868, he married Caroline Geismar. They had three children: Ernest, the technician, Camille, who assumed the head of a new factory, and Jenny, less involved, was in charge of administration for a while. 

In 1904, Ernest Lipmann sought the help Pierre and Marie Curie to find a material that could be read in the dark. Thus, Lip created the first phosphorescent dial.

Frederic "Fred" Samuel Lipmann (right), grandson of Emmanuel and son of Ernest was born in Besançon on November 2, 1905. After a chaotic schooling in Paris, his father put him in the watchmaking school of Besançon. After completing his military service (mandatory in France at that time), he left for the United StLIP ates in 1928 on a study tour where he visited the watchmaking factories and assembly plants of the Harley Davidson and Indian motorcycles. This trip and his passion for motorsport would influence his vision and methods. In August 1931 he joined the family company.

The T18

Produced from 1935 until the end of the 1950s, a LIP T18 was gifted to Sir Winston Churchill (1948) by the French government in recognition of his services France during the Second World War. The classic T18 is still produced today.

Under Fred's direction, LIP became the first watch manufacturer in France. 1954 marks the peak of the company, with 1,500 employees, 300,000 watches a year. Under the leadership of Fred Lip, the company invented the first electric watch, called "Electronic. which is actually part electric, part mechanical. It is presented on March 19th, 1952, a full five years before Hamilton introduced its electric watch. The watch is seen below, pulled from a consumer ad.

Here is a LIP catalog from the mid-1950s

Here are some more pictures of  LIP watches:

We jump to the quartz crisis of the 1970s. Fred Lipmann bucks the tide and continues to produce mechanical watches. Always at the forefront, Fred Lip embarks on the adventure of design with Prince François De Baschmakoff. Some designs are shown below:

Next up is the Mythic, maintaining the brand's values: technical and avant-garde.

Next, we'll look at some LIP watches and advertisements through the decades.

T18                                                                                                                                        

Now, here are some vintage advertisements for LIP:

Here is another photo of Frederic "Fred" Samuel Lipmann (above)

Here is a catalog from the mid-1950s:

Since 1984

These excerpts are from an article in the June 1984 issue of Europa Star

Founded in 1867 by Emmanuel Lipmann, Lip is an iconic brand of the French watchmaking industry. As a family business, it proudly flew the Gallic colours until the 1960s, when it was hit hard by the quartz crisis. After the last family member, Fred Lip, was ousted in 1971, the company was taken under self-management by its employees on two occasions (1973 and 1977). It eventually filed for bankruptcy in the 1980s. But with its rich heritage and over 150 years of history, in 2014 Lip found a buyer to revive this jewel of the French watchmaking industry, in its original stronghold in Besancon. 

Restoring the reputation of a legendary brand is no easy task. At its peak, Lip was producing 300,000 watches a year, but then the brand vanished from the watchmaking scene. It wasn't until a local family took an interest that Lip was finally reborn. Pierre-Alain Berard has been CEO of the brand since its takeover. A native of Besancon and the son of a watchmaker, the young man saw his father Philippe create the Societe des Montres de Besancon (SMB) in 1978. He says, "Our history and that of Lip coincide. My father created SMB on the arrival of quartz, which destabilized Lip. We do assembly and development, and we subcontract for distribution groups and licensed brands. Personally, I've always seen Lip as part of the horological landscape. When Mr. Bernerd reached out to us to ask if we'd consider buying Lip, he said: 'You have the know-how, you're from Besancon and you understand what a family business is. Taking over Lip's business was a no-brainer for us:' "The foundations were in place for the brand to regain momentum, but we had to start from scratch," Pierre-Alain Berard continues. "Between 1990 and 2000, Lip watches were cheaply made in China and sold in supermarkets. After the buyout, we mothballed the brand to purge the market of these low-quality products." 

And the article goes on. Here are images of the Lip watches that accompany the article:

The LIP electric

A LIP chronograph

Additional

\\images:

Citizen

By Bruce Shawkey

Most people think of Citizen as a modern watch. Did you know the brand goes all the way back to the 1920s. Prior to Citizen, most of the watches sold in Japan were pocket watches and were imported from Switzerland. Determined to create a Japan-made rival product, the Shokosha Watch Research Institute, the precursor of CITIZEN, launched its own pocket watch in 1924. It was an excellent product, but it lacked a name. The mayor of Tokyo, Count Shinpei Goto was asked to suggest one. The name he came up with was “CITIZEN,” an expression of the hope that as many people as possible — citizens — would buy the watches and keep them for a long time.

Pocketwatches evolved into wristwatches. At first, Citizen watches remained in Japan, but the mechanical timepieces were eventually exported to the United States. And then mechanical watches turned to quartz, though Citizen still makes mechanical watches. Here's a mechanical Citizen from the early 1950s, featured in an ad from the Asian edition of Europa Star magazine. It's a very handsome multi-date watch, and if you didn't know better, would swear it was made in Switzerland:

The Evolution of the Wristwatch

 By Bruce Shawkey

Found this interesting article in a 1950 Asia issue of Europa Star on the evolution of the wristwatch. The particular slant of the article provides a little different on the whole discussion of how wristwatches came to be the timekeeper of choice. Popular wisdom war as the major contributing factor, but this article cites the need for accuracy, citing the tendency for accuracy to be diminished as the parts of a watch's movement are decreased in size. The article also discusses the evolution of the wristwatch from a simple timekeeper, to one with complication, beginning with a second hand, calendar function, all the way to a chronograph. I have edited the article to make it more readable.

It is interesting to note that the wrist watch, invented in the early part of the 19th century, probably at the end of the 18th century, was completely forgotten and neglected for almost one hundred years, only to come into use again in 1906. From that date on, the wrist watch, made with a lever escapement and greatly improved through considerable progress in the manufacture of its mechanism, has enjoyed such extraordinary success that in less than twenty years it has attained first place in the family of watches. At the same time, this development has caused a considerable growth in the Swiss watchmaking industry. The wrist watch has not, however, reached the position which it now holds without a great deal of work and research. For several decades wrist watches stopped frequently and were poor timekeepers. But improvements in mechanical precision, in some cases accuracy to within 1/1000 of a millimeter resulted in improvements in accuracy. There is also the the improvement in the quality of the metals and other substances used in the construction of the movement. 

The Wrist Chronometer

 For several years the Swiss Chronometrical Obervatories at Neuchatel and Geneva and the British Observatory at Teddington have been receiving annually a certain number of wrist chronometers of an extraordinary degree of precision. Between 1923 and 1942, most optimistic forecasts of watchmakers have been surpassed. Some watches performed as well as plus or minus 0.14 seconds in variation per day. It must not, however, be deduced from these figures that wrist watches are capable of attaining a precision equal or even higher than that of pocket watches. 

Complicated Wrist Watches

Complicated wrist watches fall into four categories: 1. Watches with sweep second hand 2. Self-winding watches ("Automatics") 3. Watches with calendar and full date 4. Wrist chronographs. None of these mechanisms is of recent invention. The first two were applied to pocket watches during the second half of the 18th century, the third in the 19th century and the fourth, the chronographs, were invented in the middle of the 19th century.

WWII Slows Watch Sales

 By Bruce Shawkey

Swiss watch companies had to make some drastic changes during WWII. Europe was embroiled in a war as was the United States. Markets in those countries were essentially closed, save for Ordnance goods such as military watches, bomb timers, etc.  Swiss watch companies had to find new markets to keep their people employed. One key market during WWII was Latin America. Countries there were not directly involved in in the war, so consumer and luxury goods could be safely shipped there. Below are some advertisements from a Latin America trade magazine showing how watch companies and their authorized dealers were attempting to drum up business, even as much of the world was at war.

Certina

Angelus                         Election         Jaeger LeCoultre                           Omega

Vulcain

Rodana                                                                                Roamer

Universal