Recommended Reading: A Tribute To A Forgotten Giant Of Watchmaking Who Helped Shape The Modern Watch World
Despite the fact that the watch industry loves to beat the drum of tradition, the fact is that it can have a shockingly short collective memory when it comes to anything that doesn’t grab the attention of customers and help sell watches. Unfortunately this means that an awful lot of important companies, watches, and people get swept under the rug. It also means that customers often form views about watches and brands that lack grounding in actual – as opposed to brand-curated – history. Today we’ve found a must-read story about one such person, who all real watch lovers should know and remember.
Last Sunday I boarded a plane in Melbourne and made the 8,000-odd kilometre trek to Tokyo. And in the last week I have travelled, by Shinkansen, bus and car a further 1500 or kilometres across Japan. On my wrist every step of the way – from airport lounges to traditional Ryokans – was the Seiko Astron. The Astron is a tremendously important and innovative watch for Seiko – it takes its name from the first quartz wristwatch, developed by the brand in 1969. The orginal Astron was a major milestone, not just in watchmaking, but in the history of electrical engineering. Seiko is hoping that the current Astron, released in 2012 will prove to be just as significant; it is the world’s first GPS solar watch, and aims to be an unfailing, ever-accurate timepiece, no matter how obscure your timezone. There’s no doubt it sounds impressive, but what’s it like on the wrist? My first impression was…Confusion. I’m a mechanical watch kind of guy, and the Astron, for all its appearance as a conventional watch, is a very hi-tech product. At first glance it appears to be a chronograph, but closer inspection reveals that the subdials are actually a second time zone, the…
