The Seiko Corporation began as K. Hattori & Co., Ltd in 1881; it
later became Seikosha clock supply factory and finally Seiko Corporation
in 1895. The line of work was always about timepieces, initially with
wall clocks, and then pocket watches.
Pocket watches which were also
known as fob watches, due to the short leather strap which allowed them
to be secured to the belt of a waistcoat. In 1923, a magnitude 7.9
earthquake centered under Oshima Island destroyed most of Tokyo, and the
ensuing fires took away the Seiko factory and headquarters before Seiko
Watches had even begun.
The Taisho Era began in Japan in 1912; the new emperor was taken as a
good omen for business. The Seikosha company decided it was time to
introduce a new watch, which, for the first time, used the brand name
Seiko.
This branding would continue into the current day for
wristwatches, while wall clocks continued under the Seikosha brand name.
This new Seiko watch had a diameter of approximately 1.1 inches, tiny
by current standards.
The terminology we use in describing watches can be confusing to most
people. The term movement, for instance, refers to the moving parts of
the watch, with exception of the hands. The most common types of
movements are mechanical, quartz, and electronic. Except for the
mechanical watches, very few moving parts exist within the movement.
Digital watches were first introduced to the marketplace by two separate
American companies. The resulting excitement within the world of
watch-making is a revealing lesson for all businesses. While these
first watches were more accurate, they had problems with high price and
short lifespans. Their introduction, however, sent a spark through the
Swiss watch making industry as they took another look at the quartz
movement.
There are times in the business world when a maker becomes so powerful
they become almost synonymous with the product they make. Swiss watch
technology had so outpaced the rest of the world that they became
accustomed to their place at the top of the watch-making community. The
Swiss were completely dominant.
In 1925, the Swiss held an annual watch
show called Baselworld to show off the many types of watches
manufactured in their country. In 1967, one of the exhibitions presented
their first ever quartz movement wristwatch. Because it lacked the
traditional mainspring and moving parts, they considered it a novelty
and did not protect the technology. This allowed the rest of the world
the opportunity to strike.
With great strides in miniaturization and continued increases in
accuracy, wristwatches were incredibly popular and were manufactured in a
dizzying array of shapes and sizes. As time went on, extremely accurate
watches were no longer the sole domain of the high end expensive
watches, but rather accuracy was affordable. With the increased
flexibility, the decrease in size constraints yielded, and women could
color and style coordinate their watches with their clothing, and
accessorizing became the norm.
The watches of today are far more than simple devices used to keep time.
They are accurate enough to assist with celestial navigation and serve
multiple functions as well. Other technologies advance, so the comic
strip radio watch may never be financially practical, but the technology
to produce it exists. Watches now come with calculators, schedulers,
and many keep two time zones at a time, with specialty watches available
programmed with every time zone.
Throughout the last one hundred years, watches have made surprising
changes and adaptations to stay an integral piece of technology for the
individual. Changing sizes, increased accuracy, and affordability have
kept them a staple product for the masses.
By constantly updating the
technology and paying attention to the demands for convenience, style,
and functionality, wristwatches have prevented their replacement by
other technological wonders. One can get the time from a laptop or
cellular phone, but almost everyone still wears a watch. With Seiko
Watches introducing new technology in the form of electronic ink watches, they will not be going away anytime soon.
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