Vintage Seiko Twin Quartz 9923

In the ten years that followed the release of the world’s first production quartz watch in December 1969, the cycle of rapid development and refinement transformed this new time-keeping technology from artisanal science-project into slick, mass-production high-end state-of-the-art haute-horology.  The Seiko Astron’s 35A movement used a quartz crystal oscillator operating at 8192 Hz but by the following year had developed into the 3502 running at twice that frequency.  The 3823A VFA from 1973 employed special condenser-controlled temperature compensation and was specified to lose/gain no more than 5 seconds per month. 

The story of Seiko began in 1881, when a 21 year old entrepreneur, Kintaro Hattori, opened a shop selling and repairing watches and clocks in central Tokyo. Just eleven years later, in 1892, he established the 'Seikosha' factory. 

In the 1960's, Seiko announced itself on the international sports timing stage with a whole new generation of high-precision equipment that was enthusiastically endorsed by many international sports federations and used to capture elapsed time at many of the world's leading sports events. Central to this success was a range of stopwatches that incorporated Seiko's innovative "heart-shaped cam" mechanism, a feature which delivered a level of precision once thought unachievable by manual sports timing devices. Then, in 1969, Seiko introduced the Seiko Speed timer with the innovative Calibre 6139. It was the world's first automatic chronograph with a column wheel and vertical clutch, two devices that delivered real improvements in the measurement of elapsed time in a wristwatch and are still a prerequisite in high functionality chronographs.