The Marvel Dynasty
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Seiko Marvel
The first Seiko movement designed and produced in-house from scratch appeared in 1956 and powered a whole range of Marvel-branded Seiko watches produced between 1956 and 1959. The Marvel was intended to compete globally not only in terms of performance but also in terms of reliability and ease of maintenance.
That being the case, it is probably safe to regard the Marvel as the original modern Seiko wristwatch. Its importance lies not just in its position as the first wholly original Seiko but importantly for its role as the origin of a species: over the next few years it would evolve, refine, grow and sire a multitude of progeny that formed the basis of much of the important catalogue of Seiko output over the following decade and more.
For the full account of the restoration of this example, please click here.
Seiko Crown 15002
The underlying philosophy of Seiko’s movement designers towards the end of the 1950’s appears to have been defined to some extent by the maxim that bigger is better. The up-sizing of the 23.7 mm diameter Seiko Super to the 25.6 mm Seiko Marvel in 1956 allowed the designers room to exploit the benefits of larger gears, mainsprings and balances, resulting in a movement with greater accuracy, consistency and stamina. The next step in the major developmental cycle was, in a sense, to rinse and repeat. Seiko’s developing ambitions to produce a properly high quality, higher-end watch would be better served by an even larger movement that could accommodate a larger balance wheel to improve isochronism and a larger barrel to accommodate a higher torque mainspring. The result was an up-scaling in 1959 of the Marvel movement to the 12½” (27.6 mm) Seiko Crown.
The Crown movement formed the basis of a catalogue of different models, beginning with Crown sub-branded watches produced from the end of the 1950s but including a diverse a selection of other lines that included the one-button Chronograph of 1964 and in highly-refined form as the basis of the original Grand Seiko.
For the full account of the restoration of this 1961 example, please click here.
Lord Marvel J14039
Prior to the introduction of the first Grand Seiko in 1960, the pinnacle of the Seiko product tree was occupied by the Lord Marvel, introduced in 1958 as a luxurious refinement of the Marvel. The first Lord Marvel movement used as its basis the 11.5 ligne (25.6 mm) Marvel but with significant upgrades in jeweling, finish and features. The gear train was fully jewelled in the new 23 jewel calibre (with the exception of the barrel) with the third wheel, escape wheel and pallet fork benefiting from end-piece cap jewels (the pre-cursor to Diafix) on the dial side and the third, escape and sweep seconds wheel similarly capped on the train side. The fixed stud holder of the Marvel was replaced by moveable and the overall level of finishing at a higher level, marking the Lord Marvel out as a top tier product.
The early watches were available in steel, capped gold and 18K solid gold cases, the latter selling for an astonishing 26,000 Yen in 1960 (for reference, the first Grand Seiko was priced at 25,000 Yen in 1963).
For the full account of the restoration of this 1960 example of a gold-filled J14039, please click here.
Lord Marvel 5740-1990
In 1964, the first-generation Lord Marvel was replaced with an upsized second generation, this one powered by the 5740A 23-jewel movement running at 18000 bph. The 5740A is, to all intents and purposes, a slightly detuned 3180 (or a tuned-up Crown Special). At its base is the 27.6mm Crown (the 560) but it inherits the higher-level finishing and moveable stud of the smaller 23 jewel Lord Marvel movement, as well as the stop seconds facility and tadpole lever micro-adjustment from the 3180.
The two-jewel difference between 3180 and 5740A is accounted for by the end-piece cap jewel serving the pallet fork on the 3180 (of questionable value given that the pallet fork is commonly left unlubricated) and a Diafix cap jewel serving the sweep seconds wheel. There is also a small difference in the jeweling of the barrels: both benefit from two jewels, but in the 3180 both jewels are in the barrel itself (lid and floor) whereas in the 5740A, one jewel is in the barrel lid and the other in the barrel bridge.
For the full account of the restoration of this 1964 example, please click here.
Lord Marvel 5740-8000
By the mid-1960’s, virtually all mechanical watch movements ran at a steady 18000 bph, 19800 bph or less commonly 21600 bph. Inevitably, these incremental nudges upward in beat rate served as a driver towards a more ambitious stretching of the envelope and in 1966 Girard-Perregaux developed the automatic 32A movement whose beat rate doubled that of the mainstream standard to a heady 36000 bph (10 bps or 5 Hz). With all the plaudits raining down on the Swiss, Seiko’s Suwa division were quietly developing their own take on the high-beat watch movement. Curiously though, rather than take the obvious route and install a 36000 bph movement into one of their high end models, Seiko chose instead to take a more cautious approach and used the lower key Lord Marvel as the vehicle with which to deliver the World’s second 10 bps movement.
In contrast to the automatic Gyromatic HF of GP, the Lord Marvel movement was developed entirely in house, an evolution of the existing hand-wind 5740B low beat movement whose roots can be traced back to the Seiko Crown 560 of 1959. The Lord Marvel 5740-8000 appeared towards the end of 1966 and the success of this reconnoitre into the high-beat space prompted Seiko’s rapid development and deployment of a 36000 bph version of the newly designed 61 series movement into its automatic 61 series Grand Seiko later the same year. The following year, the Daini division launched their high-beat 45 calibre, which was fitted initially to King Seikos from 1968 and subsequently into Grand Seikos.
For the full account of the restoration of this late 1977 example, please click here.
Seiko 45899 one-button chronograph
The Seiko 45899 one-button chronograph was introduced in 1964 to coincide with the Tokyo Oympics. Its hand-wind movement was based on the established Crown 560 calibre, and in this incarnation featured a pillar wheel design to orchestrate the start, stop and reset of a single centrally-mounted chronograph hand. The absence of an elapsed minutes sub-dial was compensated by the inclusion of a rotating bezel, the idea being that you aligned the triangle with the tip of the minute hand upon starting the chronograph.
A number of different variants were offered from the outset using different dial designs and colours as well as both plastic and metal turning rings. The non-date watches were fitted with the 21 jewel 5719A movement running at 18000 bph. The date-equipped versions used the 5717A.
For the full account of the restoration of this November 1964 example, please click here.
Grand Seiko 3180
The up-sizing of the Marvel to the Crown marked the start of a strategy by Seiko to develop a high-end watch that would hold its own against the Swiss competition. The Crown movement aquired a numeric name, the 560, but just as the Marvel had evolved into the Lord Marvel, so the Crown’s 560 evolved to the Crown Special’s 341. Both of these larger hand-wound movements ran at 18000 bph, and featured Diashock shock protection and Diafix jeweling. The 341 boasted an additional 4 jewels more than the base 560, taking the jewel count to 23, and a stop-seconds setting device. However, in moving from the smaller Marvel movement to the larger 560 and 341, the moveable stud on the balance wheel had been lost.
In 1960, Seiko decided to pull out all the stops and produce ‘the best possible practical wristwatch, engineered for optimal performance of the three core functions of accuracy, reliability, and visibility.’ That intention was realized in the creation of the first Grand Seiko in 1960, fitted with a further refinement of the Crown movement. This new 3180 calibre combined the movable stud of the Lord Marvel with the larger balance wheel and barrel of the Crown. The liberal smattering of Diafix jewelling and fully jeweled barrel arbor raised the jewel count to 25. The movement was certified as accurate to +12 to -3 seconds a day and offered a power reserve of 45 hours. It was the first watch from Japan to be compliant with the standard of excellence of the Bureaux Officiels de Contrôle de la Marche des Montres.
An account of the restoration of this 1963 example of the Grand Seiko 3180 can be found here.
