A key Figure in the Watch Industry - Tsuneya Nakamura

When we think of the brand name Seiko, innovation, reliability, and value creation come to mind. This is all thanks to their visionary staff members such as Tsuneya Nakamura, who we will be introducing in this article.

The Beginnings

Tsuneya Nakamura was born in 1923 and joined Daini Seikosha in Kameido, during the unstable period towards the end of World War II, in 1944. This division was responsible for increasing production until the factory was bombed during the war. Manufacturing continued in other places (Kiryu, Toyama, Sendai, Suwa) until the headquarters again became Kameido in 1949. The young, just 22-year-old Nakamura, after the 1945 bombing, was transferred to the Suwa factory. During this period, due to the difficult economic situation caused by the war and the damages caused by air strikes, as well as lagging production plants, Seiko found itself in a significant decline.

A few years later, in 1956, as a result of Nakamura's hard and persistent work, the aptly named Seiko Marvel was released. This wonder watch kicked off a new successful commercial period for the brand and earned Nakamura international fame in the watch industry. This watch was also significant in the brand's history as it was their first independent, in-house produced movement equipped with "Diashock" shock protection.

The successor to the Marvel, the Seiko Gyro Marvel was the first model to feature the notorious "Magic Lever" winding system in an automatic movement. This significantly increased the efficiency of automatic winding, and since then Swiss and German watch manufacturers have also licensed the invention.

The official timekeepers for the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics were made by Seiko. Here, the Quartz Crystal Chronometer, a portable quartz table clock, was one of the significant developments related to the promising quartz technology. The same year, Seiko introduced its first chronograph, requiring only a crown to operate.

During the Tokyo Olympics, Suwa Seikosha also implemented a new feature in their already impressive quartz table clock. The mechanism printed the measurement result directly after stopping the recording, a first in the history of the Olympics. Motivated by this success, Suwa Seikosha began manufacturing the EP-101 (Electronic Printer) printer, which led to the birth of Epson, or the son of the Electronic Printer, in 1975.

Heading Towards the Quartz Crisis

The phenomenon, referred to as the "quartz crisis" in the watch circles, played a massive role in the Japanese watch manufacturers, including Seiko. In fact, they started the entire technology avalanche by creating the world's first quartz wristwatch, the Seiko Astron. The big news came in 1969 during Christmas and can be viewed as the peak Nakamura's career, as he played a significant role in the development of quartz movements. In this movement, a quartz crystal vibrates at a stable frequency of 32,768 Hertz (1/sec) under voltage provided by a button cell. An integrated circuit regulates this and transfers it to the stepping motor, which steps the second hand once per second, thus surpassing the precision of previous mechanical watches.

The Astron shook the watch world as it offered unbeatable precision and almost forced the Swiss watch industry to kneel. Nakamura took further steps for the development of Suwa Seikosha (later Seiko Epson), which he cared for even more after being elected director. He emphasized the importance of environmentally friendly production and did so much for it that he won the "Stratospheric Ozone Protection" award six times.

The Legacy

Nakamura retired at the age of 71 in 1994, after dedicating 50 years to the Seiko group. After his retirement, he generously supported the advancement of education, science, and the arts through various foundations. It's undeniable that his years at Seiko laid the foundation for the brand's lasting success. His openness to innovation made it possible for Seiko to strive to push boundaries, being the first and only company in the world to delight the watch audience with Spring Drive movement watches.