Seiko Quartz Wristwatch
date: label: date made
content: 1969
label: date made
content: 1998
name: label: manufacturer
content: Seiko Corporation
notes: label: Description
content: The Seiko Quartz Astron 35 SQ was the first quartz wristwatch on the market. The first commercially available quartz watch went on sale in Tokyo on Christmas Day in 1969. With a limited production run of only about 100 pieces, these watches had analog dials and sold for 450,000 yen ($1250), roughly the same price as a Toyota Corolla. The watches were manufactured in Suwa City, Japan, by the firm Suwa Seikosha (now Seiko Epson) and were marketed by the parent company K. Hattori & Co., Ltd.
label: Description
content: The case and band on the Smithsonian example are a reproduction of those that originally came with Seiko’s 1969 wristwatch. Inside is an original module that contains a hybrid circuit (a combination of circuits on a single substrate, an intermediate step between discrete circuits and integrated circuits), a quartz oscillator with a frequency of 8,192 cycles per second and a miniature stepping motor for moving the hands. Seiko claimed the new watches were accurate to within plus or minus 5 seconds a month, a minute a year.
label: Description
content: At the time of the Astron’s introduction, Seiko produced more mechanical watches than any other firm in the world. But company officials had been experimenting with quartz timekeeping since the late 1950s. Beginning in 1959, a team of engineers, under Tsuneya Nakamura, started to develop a quartz wristwatch. Their first quartz timekeepers were battery-powered chronometers, one of which was used in the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 1964. By 1967, Seiko engineers had miniaturized the timekeeper to produce a wristwatch prototype. To develop manufacturing techniques required another two years.
label: Description
content: The Astron was the first public indicator that the wristwatch was about to be completely reinvented, with all-new electronic components. When battery-driven quartz wristwatches like the Astron first hit the market, it seemed unlikely that the new-fangled gadgets would sell. But electronic watches won over the buying public in a few short years.
label: Description
content: Reference:
label: Description
content: Stephens, Carlene and Maggie Dennis. “Engineering Time: Inventing the Electronic Wristwatch,” <i>British Journal for the History of Science</i> 33 (2000): pp. 477-497.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: Japan
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Mechanisms
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content: Time and Navigation
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content: Measuring & Mapping
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Seiko Corporation of America
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1998.0248.01
label: catalog number
content: 1998.0248.01
label: accession number
content: 1998.0248
objectType: label: Object Name
content: wristwatch, first quartz analog watch
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall - watch: 9 1/8 in x 1 5/8 in x 1/2 in; 23.1775 cm x 4.1275 cm x 1.27 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall - case: 3 in x 5 in x 5 in; 7.62 cm x 12.7 cm x 12.7 cm