Seiko & Citizen Watch Forum Message Archive

...and I have to admit, that's the best-looking, non high-end Seiko movement I've seen.

Perhaps I can help with some info on Hattori. The passage below was lifted from an article on the wartime development of Seiko marine chronometers (which were copied and developed from a Ulysse Nardin design). (The article can be found at http://www.nawcc.org/headquarters/pub/articles/haruyama.htm )

"Seiko was established in 1881 by Kintarou Hattori as Hattori Watch and Jeweler in Ginza, Tokyo. In 1892, a manufacturing division was separately established as Seiko-sha. In 1917, Hattori Watch and Jeweler was organized as a company with the two firms. The Seiko brand was first used on watches in 1924. In the course of 1937-1942, the group was separated into three companies: Hattori Watch and Jeweler, Daini-Seiko-sha and Yamato engineering. Daini-Seiko-sha and Yamato engineering mainly produced watches. The Seiko group currently consists of five independent corporations: Seiko Epson (watches, computers, LC, quartz, etc.), Seiko Instruments (watches, electronics devices, measuring instruments, etc.), Seiko (watches and clocks), Seiko clock (clocks) and Seiko precision (watches and clocks). Incidentally, the retail building of Hattori Watch and Jeweler was occupied by GHQ (General Headquarters of US occupation) as the Tokyo PX store after WWII from 1945 to 1952. The present name of the building is Wako, which is owned by Seiko Co. Ltd., and it is a high-class department store."

All interesting stuff, like your project! Congratulations!

Cheers,

LesZ