Early Quartz Watches
Seiko 3823-7001 V.F.A.
In 1969, Seiko released the Seiko Astron, the world’s first production quartz watch. The Astron’s 35A movement used a quartz crystal oscillator running at 8192 Hz paired with a frequency divider whose job it was to convert the 8192 Hz electrical signal into 1 Hz impulses. By 1970, the Astron’s 35A had developed into the 3502, now running at a doubled frequency of 16384 Hz. About 1800 of the Seiko 3502 watches were produced between 1970 and ’71 at which point the 3800 series was released, marking the true beginning of the mass-produced stepper motor controlled quartz watch. The 3823A, incorporating a day/date calendar was launched in the Autumn of 1971 in the form of the futuristic 3823-7000.
These were watches that were produced with no expense spared: the 7-jewel movements adjusted in 6 positions and temperature compensated; anti-magnetic covers fitted front and rear; hand-applied metal minute markers on the dial; and anti-reflection coating applied to the Hardlex glass. All of that meticulous care and bleeding edge engineering came at a price though: at launch, these watches were priced at 141,000 Yen ($400/£165), about two months salary for the average Japanese citizen at the time. Within a year or so, the dial text had been augmented by the letters, V.F.A. (Very Fine Accuracy), signposting the careful individual adjustments to timekeeping: the 3823A was specified to lose/gain no more than 5 seconds per month.
For the full account of the restoration of this 1973 example of the 3823-7001, please click here.
Seiko Quartz QT 38-7030 ‘Snowflake’
In 2004, following the release of the first Spring Drive-powered Grand Seiko, the SBGA001, the design team that worked on the development of that watch were tasked with the challenge of creating a dial that reflected the beauty of the Nagano mountains that surrounded the Shinshu Watch Studio in Shiojiri where Grand Seiko’s Spring Drive and 9F-powered quartz watches are made. The craftsmen and women there decided to create a dial with an uneven surface that evoked the pure white, freshly fallen snow covering the slopes of the mountains that dominated their view from the windows of their studio. The resulting Spring Drive “Snowflake” was released in October 2005 and that model survives to the present day in the form of the SBGA211, identical to the original but using the post-2017 Grand Seiko branding.
It turns out though that while the SBGA011 was certainly the first Grand Seiko “Snowflake”, it wasn’t the first Seiko Snowflake. That honor lies with the Seiko Quartz QT 38-7030 whose movement is the base 38A, a down-specced version of the very fine adjusted 3823A used in the VFA watch described above.
For a description of the restoration of this 1973 example of the Seiko 38-7030, please click here.
Seiko King Quartz 4822-8000
It is very easy to take the view that the quartz revolution represented some sort of cataclysm for traditional watchmaking. However, that viewpoint neglects the reality of the engineering achievement of those pioneering quartz technology watchmakers of the late 1960’s and early ‘70’s. There was a very good reason why early quartz watches were priced at a very considerable premium over the established mechanical wristwatch: the movements that powered them were magnificent, ingenious, complex, beautifully over-engineered feats magic. And in many cases, housed in very high-quality cases and furnished with artisanal dials and handsets.
As good an example as any of this period of quartz movement development was the calendar-equipped 7 jewel, temperature adjusted Seiko 4822A. Just as in the golden mechanical era of the 1960s in which the top two tiers of the Seiko heirarchy were occupied by Grand Seiko and King Seiko, so, by the mid-1970s, those positions were occupied by Grand Quartz and King Quartz. In 1975, a King Quartz 4822 would have cost about half the price of a Rolex DateJust and more than twice as much as a Seiko 6105-8110, a watch whose current value is at least an order of magnitude higher than the watch shown here.
The restoration of this late 1975 example of the 4822-8000 is documented here and here.
Seiko King Quartz 0853-8025
Most of the early Seiko quartz movements up to about 1974 were the product of the Suwa division in Nagano but towards the end of 1974, the Daini Seikosha division joined the mass-produced quartz game with the stepper motor 08 series which found applications in QT, QZ and King Quartz branded watches. The QT series used the 0822/23; the QZ, the 0841/42/43 and the highest-end King Quartz, the 0852/53. Rather than simply creating a redundant range of Daini quartz models for the sake of it, these watches were pitched at a price point 20 to 30% lower than the 38 series equivalents. The calibres ending in a 1 signified no date while those ending in a 2 featured a date only calendar and those ending in a 3, day/date.
Although the three variants shared the same base architecture, they differed in some aspects of their design and in the features offered: all three are temperature-compensated 9 jewel quartz movements running at 32,768 Hz, but the 0822/3 is rated at 15s/month compared to the 10s/month of the 0842/3 and 0852/3. The latter two both feature trimmer condensers for regulation. All three feature stop seconds, quickset calendars and bilingual day calendars. The 0852/3 additionally features one brilliant feature which you can discover if you read the account of the restoration.
An account of the restoration of this late 1976 example can be found here.
Seiko Grand Quartz 9943-8000
The Seiko Astron’s 35A movement used a quartz crystal oscillator operating at 8192 Hz but by the following year it had evolved 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. By 1975 the 38 series was being phased out and replaced by the Suwa-produced 48 series and the Daini-produced 08 series, both of which now running at the industry-standard 32768 Hz for stepper-motor controlled quartz watch movements.
The 48 and 08 series were specified to a rate of ±10 seconds per month in King Quartz variants, improving to ±5 s/month in the 48 series Grand Quartz and up to ±1 s/month in the Quartz Superior models. The 48 series ruled the roost until late 1978 when the Seiko’s first twin quartz temperature compensated movement was released. The introduction of this movement marked the point at which Seiko measured accuracy not in terms of a monthly rate but in terms of an annual rate. The Grand Quartz 9943 was rated at ±10 s/year and the Superior Twin Quartz 9983 at ±5 s/year.
An account of the restoration of this 1978 example of the Grand Quartz 9943-8000 can be found here.
