RICOH WATCHES - How a camera company tried to take on Seiko and Citizen
Ricoh is commonly known today for Cameras, and we likely associate them with things like photocopiers and fax machines. But Ricoh has a surprisingly impressive horological heritage arguably going back to 1899 through Takano - the company it took over in 1962. There are some fun mechanical watches in those early days, as well as the collaboration with Hamilton on electric watches with Hamilton-Ricoh.
They got into the quartz movement game too in the 70s setting up to compete with the likes of Seiko. This would of course move into LED and LCD digital watches, including ana-digis - which this video will more comprehensively cover. It also covers some of the more recent history under Ricoh Elemex and their reminder series with brands like Shrewd and Terra, as well as the anniversary editions celebrating the 60th and 80th anniversaries of Takano. Hope you enjoy the video!
My name is Gordon and I run a YouTube channel focused largely on digital, electronic and vintage watch history. Link below!
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Good video, thank you