A brief history discussion, Inspired by my 1977 Grand quartz
I Recently went down the rabbit hole of early Seiko quartz which led to the quartz crisis, but what I had never thought about was how much innovation went into creating what was essentially the most accurate watches in the world at the time!
As I am a big seiko fan boy and grand seiko lover I decided I wanted to add a vintage quartz seiko which would essentially be the precursor to my current favourite watch, my Grand seiko gishi sbgx343 with the 9f movement
And what I eventually managed to find was this excellent condition 1977 Seiko Grand quartz,
In 1975 the Grand quartz was introduced as the the higher end version of the king seiko, and produced at the suwa seikosha studio,
What I hadn't realised was just how expensive these were at the time, around 100,000 yen which with inflation is around $4000 in todays money!
Many of the watches powered by these movements were more expensive than the mechanical counterparts, and were marketed above them due to being the most innovative and newest technology at the time, they weren't very affordable, which is crazy as these can be picked up for an absolute bargain now,
The movements are extremely robust, my example his just had a full service and needed no new parts even at nearly 50 years old!
It is said the development cost was around 1-2million to produce and purchase the machinery to develop,
It seems the cheap modern plastic quartz has somehow made us forget about some of the excellent examples out there still today such as the 'grandson of these early models the Grand seiko 9f
If your in the market for a vintage piece and something different and probably a safe buy, the Grand quartz and King quartz watches can be purchased relatively cheap, the finishing is fantastic even to today's standards,
these were some of the first watches designed with the 'tanaka' grammar of design which is in itself a rabbit hole of research, but these are genuinely awesome piece to buy.
If you fancy a bit of mind blowing hybrid quartz movements, take a look at the seiko elnix movements!
What are your thoughts on these early quartz watches?
I love them!
Electro/mechanical Engineer in the heavy industries sector, love motorcycles, watches and cycling.
The amount of mass production of quartz movements that go inside low quality or low priced mall watches have really made a negative stereotype towards quartz among watch enthusiasts. Most of them do not even bother to look into the difference between ordinary quartz and high accuracy quartz, nor the marvel that is spring drive. A lot would dismiss quartz as an inferior movement.
On the other hand, most non watch enthusiasts i know value quartz as a lower priced watch with a set it and forget it convenience and a good value for money.
I love this era of quartz. If you are into seiko quartz, you should look into the Dolce line of seikos. The movements they used were derived from the lessons they learned producing high accuracy quartz movements such as the one in your watch. They were cheaper but still serviceable and well finished. They would be the last serviceable quartz watch produced by GS until the 9F.
They also put these movements in often really interesting case shapes using unique metals. The metals were infused with tungeston carbide which give it an incredibly high scratch resistance and shine which looks like stainless steel or gold depending on the light.
I’ve kinda become obsessed with buying them while they’re still affordable and available. Such a unique offering that will never be made again.
I love this era of quartz. If you are into seiko quartz, you should look into the Dolce line of seikos. The movements they used were derived from the lessons they learned producing high accuracy quartz movements such as the one in your watch. They were cheaper but still serviceable and well finished. They would be the last serviceable quartz watch produced by GS until the 9F.
They also put these movements in often really interesting case shapes using unique metals. The metals were infused with tungeston carbide which give it an incredibly high scratch resistance and shine which looks like stainless steel or gold depending on the light.
I’ve kinda become obsessed with buying them while they’re still affordable and available. Such a unique offering that will never be made again.
That's some great info, I have never looking into them but I will now