How a Cheap Watch From Japan Nearly Ended Swiss Watchmaking

On Christmas Day 1969, Seiko started selling the Astron in Tokyo: the first quartz wristwatch, rated to five seconds a month. Within fifteen years, roughly two out of three Swiss watchmaking jobs were gone, the banks had taken over the biggest groups, and a fifty-one-part plastic watch had to save the industry. This is how the quartz crisis happened, why the Swiss lost a race they started first, and how Rolex came out of it more expensive than ever. Rise and Fall is our series on how watch brands and empires are built, broken and rebuilt. CHAPTERS 0:00 A watch from Tokyo 0:38 Christmas in Tokyo 1:51 Switzerland had it first 2:50 Why the Swiss hesitated 3:58 The price collapse 5:00 The franc and the fall 5:51 The banks take over 6:54 Fifty-one parts 8:32 How Rolex survived 9:40 The next crisis SOURCES Seiko, Astron 50th anniversary story https://www.seikowatches.com/uk-en/pr... Epson, 1969 Quartz Astron 35SQ https://corporate-origin.epson.biz/en... IEEE Milestone: Electronic Quartz Wristwatch, 1969 https://ethw.org/Milestones:Electroni... Swissinfo (2003): The Swatch celebrates its 20th birthday https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/banking-... WIPO Magazine (2010): Swatch https://www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/en... Science Museum, Hamilton Pulsar https://collection.sciencemuseum.org.... Watch Time, Hamilton PSR / Pulsar history https://www.watchtime.com/brands/hami... Strategy Analytics via BusinessWire (5 Feb 2020): Apple Watch outsells the entire Swiss watch industry in 2019 https://www.businesswire.com/news/hom... Amy Glasmeier, Manufacturing Time (Guilford, 2000); Pierre-Yves Donzé, A Business History of the Swatch Group https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/30736 Quartz crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz_... ; The Swatch Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swa... Rolex Oysterquartz and ref. 5100 details (collector sources): https://beckertime.com/?p=178759 ; https://teddybaldassarre.com/blogs/wa... FOOTAGE AND PHOTOS Employment, firm counts and Apple Watch figures are estimates from the sources above; where sources disagree we give rounded figures. Photos via Wikimedia Commons, some cropped or placed on a dark background: Deutsches-uhrenmuseum (CC BY-SA 4.0); Jordy Meow (CC BY 3.0); Dietmar Rabich (CC BY-SA 4.0); Hannes Grobe/Hannes Grobe (talk) (CC BY 3.0); Museumsfoto (CC BY 3.0 de); 雷太 (CC BY 2.0); wilford peloquin (CC BY 2.0); Francoise Kuenzi (CC BY-SA 4.0); OPAN (CC BY-SA 4.0); Omega-collector (CC BY-SA 4.0); Werner Friedli (CC BY-SA 4.0); MHM55 (CC BY-SA 4.0); public domain; Momox de Morteau (CC BY-SA 3.0); Elleka (CC BY-SA 3.0); EMore98 (CC BY-SA 4.0); Alison Cassidy (CC BY-SA 4.0); Joe Haupt from USA (CC BY-SA 2.0); USA (CC BY 2.0); tommypjr (CC BY 2.0); ken93110 (CC BY-SA 3.0); Tony Webster (CC BY 2.0); März 2021 (CC BY-SA 3.0); Oblic (CC BY-SA 3.0); www.foto-tw.de (CC BY-SA 3.0 de); Comet Photo AG (Zürich) (CC BY-SA 4.0); Walter Rutishauser (CC BY-SA 4.0); Regina Kühne (CC BY-SA 4.0); landrit.jan.kenan (CC BY-SA 3.0); Hmock (CC BY-SA 4.0); Luekk (CC BY-SA 3.0); Bielbienneboy (CC BY-SA 4.0); Ciaubud (CC BY-SA 4.0); Bielbienneboy (CC BY 4.0); Reuben Mallaby (CC BY-SA 3.0); ajay_suresh (CC BY 2.0); Esperto Orologi at Italian Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0); Derk Marko Reckel - DMR (CC BY-SA 3.0); Clyde94 (CC BY-SA 4.0); Arto Alanenpää (CC BY-SA 4.0); Tulipanos (CC BY-SA 4.0); Jag9889 (CC BY-SA 4.0); Fabrizio Russo (CC BY 2.0); MIKI Yoshihito (CC BY 2.0); thomersch (CC BY 4.0) Stock video via Pexels (Pexels licence). MUSIC Drifting Memories - The Mini Vandals; Event Horizon - The Grey Room / Density & Time; Pulsar - The Grey Room / Density & Time (YouTube Audio Library) Hour & Hammer is not affiliated with any watch brand or auction house. #watches #rolex #luxurywatches