Seiko Type II Quartz — A Piece of History
Seiko Quartz Type II 7546-7010 — mine was manufactured in May 1978
The Seiko Type II Quartz holds a unique place in the history of three watch companies: Seiko, Citizen, and Bulova. How’s that? And what does “Type II” mean? Two Japanese quartz watch fans provides clues on Japanese-language watch blogs.
The story begins in 1975, according to Mr. Teruo Isozaki, watchmaker and owner of Isozaki Watch Shop in Hakusan city, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. In a post on his store’s watch blog, he tells how lately he’s been getting requests to repair watches with electronic “tuning fork” watch movements, but since he can’t get 1.3 V (volt) mercury batteries anymore he’s not able to do so (entry No. 211). Then he recounts the death of the electronic tuning fork watch.
Like the transitional battle to create a standard between Betamax and VHS video tape formats in the early 1980s, and the recent one between Blu-ray and HD DVD in our own time — Isozaki-san says the release of the Seiko Type II in 1977 established quartz as a standard that made electronic “tuning fork” watches obsolete. What follows is a summary of his comments, translated from Japanese.
Fujiyoshida, Japan — Sister City of Colorado Springs in the USA
When quartz watches were first released in the early 1970s, they were very expensive. Citizen teamed up with Bulova in 1975 to build a factory near Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi Prefecture, at the foot of Mt. Fuji. It was a state-of-the-art, efficient manufacturing facility costing ¥90,000,000 to construct. It employed 320 people.
The factory was build to manufacture Citizen Hisonic watches. It produced 18,000 watches in its first month of production, and an annual total of 500,000 pieces. The reason this line was such a big hit was the watches were more accurate than mechanical watches but retailed for around ¥20,000 — much cheaper than Seiko Quartz models.
Image Courtesy Isozaki Watch Shop
When Seiko released its “Type II” model however, sales of the Hisonic short circuited. That’s because the Type II was an affordable Seiko Quartz watch, and was more accurate than the Citizen tuning fork model. Isozaki-san ends his account by writing he hopes electronic tuning fork watches will be mass produced again in the future.
This model featured a recessed crown
A quartz watch fan on a Japanese hobby forum fills in the rest of the story. The poster, who goes by the name “Cal.7743,” writes that by the end of the 1970s there were four categories of Seiko Quartz watches:
- Bulky expensive models: Grand Quartz, King Quartz; Twin Quartz
- Thinner expensive watches: like Credor, Dolce, Chariot, Seagull
- Affordable models: Type II, Silver Wave (retailing for around ¥20,000)
- Cheap base models like the Spirit
The reason I think this comment is instructive is it leads to the conclusion that the “Type II Quartz,” when it was released in the mid-’70s, meant “a second, affordable choice” in a Seiko Quartz watch. That connects with what Isozaki-san wrote about the Type II, when released, being revolutionary as an affordable quartz-powered watch — so revolutionary it led to the Citizen Hisonic “disappear[ing] from the market after a short period.”
Cal. 7546 from a Seiko SilverWave
There is sometimes confusion between the Seiko “Twin Quartz” movement and Seiko “Type II” model. The Type II didn’t have a high-end Twin Quartz movement. The 7546 caliber movement in the Type II (with 4 jewels — compare that to the Hisonic’s 15 jewels) was an accurate movement, and powered models including the SilverWave.
My Type II is over 30 years old, but is still going strong. It keeps time to +/- 4 seconds per month. Not bad for a “second tier” model!
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*Note: This article is dedicated to StratMan II, who asked what “Type II” means when I posted a picture of my watch on the Seiko/Citizen Watch Forum. He’s one of the forum’s moderators. Thanks Zami!
**Addendum — Aaron on the Seiko/Citizen Watch Forum shared a picture of his Cal. 3863 movement. That led to a quick look at my Seiko Quartz movement information. I saw:
1969–3500 quartz movement released
1970–3605 released
1971–38xx stream released
1972–3902 released
1974–4130 & 48xx stream released
1977–7903 & 75xx steam released
Here are three comparison shots in chronological order. It’s interesting to see how the movements evolved:
1973 — Caliber 3863 (Aaron’s pic)
1974 — Caliber 4843
1977 — Caliber 7546 (Type II)
June 9th, 2008 at 5:58 am
Hi Bryan,
Great blog post on the Type II quartz! I’m not familiar with early generation quartz Seikos other than the 4004 caliber and just vaguely remember the Twin Quartz models. It’s very interesting to view early quartz modules like the 7546 from the past.
That Type II SQ of yours is certainly beautiful to this day. What’s the average battery life for this caliber?
Thanks for putting it all together nicely for me.
-StratMan-
BTW, I’d appreciate very much if you could include my blog into your blog roll. It’s at http://quartzimodo.info and I’ve put GMT+9 in my blog roll too.
June 9th, 2008 at 8:01 am
Thanks for including the additional movement photos too, Bryan. Interesting to see the evolution of the quartz modules from their earliest inception. Man, that quartz crystal from the Cal 3863 is so huge! I do wonder if replacement cells are still available for these early calibers.
June 9th, 2008 at 8:11 am
Hi Stratman,
The Seiko Quartz Cal. 7546 movement used a battery with a 5 year life. It was rated at +/- 15 seconds a month when released, so the +/- 4 seconds per month I get (after 30 years) is performing significantly better than specs. Can’t beat that.
Thanks for adding GMT+9 to your blogroll — we are honored to reciprocate.
Thanks for taking the time to comment on this article. Much appreciated.
Regards,
Bryan
June 9th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Hi Bryan,
Nice bit of research on the Type II lineage there. I certainly learned a bit. It seems like interest in old 70’s era quartz is picking up so your article is very timely. Your article also is a great example of how frustrating it can sometimes be to collect Japanese wristwatches. Wading through that hobbyist site is tough on translation software and you can only understand enough of the translations to understand that there is probably some great information there. Thanks for digging into that site and grabbing that knowledge.
The repair section of that Isozaki shop is also a nice reference for collectors. He has a vast picture database with examples of his work shown. I’m very envious not only of the watches he’s had in his shop, but also because his golf handicap is just a little better than mine!
petew
June 9th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Hi Pete,
I think the heart of this article is the information Isozaki-san provides about the Seiko Type II basically killing off Citizen (and Bulova) Tuning Fork watches. This is apparently a famous story in Japan with people of that generation interested in watches/technology.
I agree Isozaki-san’s Web site is an great resource — lots of interesting pictures/examples of his work.
Regards,
Bryan
June 9th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Hello,
Nice story to see this competition between Citizen and its tuning fork movement opposed to Seiko and its first affordable quartz one! Hard to imagine that quartz was, at that time, very expensive (I remember my first red led quartz watch, a Texas Instrument one, I had to wait for weeks and to buy it from a TI employee to have it at a fair price!).
It’s a pity that tuning fork technology has disappeared: it was really a very nice micro-mechanical technology, with the direct transform of the vibrations of the tuning fork into rotational movement. I am sure that, with today nano-mechanics, this technology could be revived.
Just a word about batteries: most of these tuning fork watches used mercury batteries, with 1.35 V voltage. Mercury batteries are no longer manufactured, but in some cases we can still use silver oxide batteries. You will find here a replacement chart, dedicated to Bulova Accutron watches, but which could probably be used for other brands http://members.iinet.net.au/~fotoplot/accbat.html . Don’t know if it can be used for Citizen tuning fork watches, but maybe worth the trial!
Best Regards,
MikeNovember.
June 9th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
I’ve never seen a Tuning Fork watch in person. I’ve read they make a peculiar sound that can be heard by holding them close to your ear. It’d be fun to experience that someday.
Considering what their quartz technology did to tuning fork movements, don’t you think it’s interesting how Seiko has been trying to expand watch movements beyond the quartz standard they set with Kinetic and Spring Drive movements?
Thanks for your comments. Much appreciated.
Regards,
Bryan
June 10th, 2008 at 5:07 am
Hello Bryan,
Yes, Tuning Fork watches are “humming”, because they work at a frequency close to 300 Hz. Most of Tuning Fork watches are based on Max Hetzel patents, that he got when working with Bulova. And the Citizen Hisonic was the result of a joint venture between Bulova and Citizen (once Bulova retired from the joint venture, the branch of Citizen which was involved became “Citizen Electronics”, in 1975).
Max Hetzel also worked for Swiss industry, and he was able to re-invent Tuning Fork watches for Omega, without infringing his own former patents with Bulova! the result is the Omega megasonic, working at 720 Hz, with a less audible “humming”!
It’s a pity such a nice technology has disappeared: we still find mechanical watches (including uninteresting ones!) but no Tuning Fork ones. However, they could benefit from progresses in microelectronics and in nano-mechanics, be competitive with mechanical watches, and probably evnen with quartz ones.
Concerning Seiko and quartz technology: yes Seiko did a lot for quartz technology (it invented it; it designed high-end quartz watches either with high frequency quartz or temperature compensation; it tried to have energy self-sufficient quartz watches , with kinetic, thermic and solar energy, though lately with solar, compared to Citizen or Casio).
And then, Seiko engineers misoriented their compass and they invented SpringDrive! In short (and this is just my opinion!), SpringDrive is an hybrid technology with no sinergy between mechanics and electronics, and just the cumulated defects of both technologies (it has the maintenance needs of mechanical watches; it has the uncertainty in perenniality of quartz watches: without original parts, no repair possible; it has a limited accuracy performance, because, due to the small electrical power available, high frequency / temperature compensated quartz cannot be used).
In fact, SpringDrive is a marketing answer to today fashion for mechanical watches: it is a quartz watch disguised in a mechanical one. And this is the consequence of Seiko inability to mass produce high-end mechanical watches: if Seiko knows how to make them (see Grand Seiko or Credor mechanical watches), it doesn’t have the industrial means and skill people to manufacture them in large quantities.
Seiko had already taken this orientation (”quartz disguised in mechanical”) with 9T82 kinetic movement, which has a very complex mechanism (some ~ 40 jewels, even more than with mechanical automatic chronographs). It is the opposite of the choice done in Seiko 5M65 movement or in some Citizen Attesa ones, where there is one stepper-motor for each hand / date function, and where even the rotation of crown is transferred to hands via a stepper motor.
I think that “one motor per hand” is the good direction for the future of analog quartz technology, along with kinetic or solar source and rechargeable batteries, and along with wave control for accuracy.
Batteries, here may lay Seiko problem: Seiko is a champion of vertical integration, and wants to design / manufacture all. Since Seiko is not a batteries manufacturer, its engineers have always been reluctant to this technology:
- they used capacitors, not rechargeable batteries, in the first kinetic watches, with the known result of failing capacitors;
- they have used 6 months storage rechargeable batteries in kinetic watches from year 2000, or in solar ones; but they curiously replaced them by 1 month storage batteries in kinetic direct drive in 2007,
- and finally they are HAPPY with SpringDrive and NO BATTERY AT ALL!
Maybe, with SpringDrive, Seiko engineers finally achieved their dream of “no battery quartz watch”. But the overall result doesn’t convince me. And I don’t believe SpringDrive will kill other quartz technologies: apart from the buzz about these watches, I would be curious to know the number of SpringDrive watches that Seiko did sell, and their sales amount, as a fraction of Seiko watches sales!
Hope Seiko will re-orient soon its compass to “true” mechanical high end watches, and high end quartz ones. I am fond of both…
Best Regards,
MikeNovember
June 10th, 2008 at 6:00 am
Hi Mike,
Your comments are interesting; one thing you reminded me of was the SeikoThermetic — I haven’t thought about it for a long time. Also, your mention of Seiko Solar technology. It’s another piece of the puzzle.
I think it would be cool to hear a Tuning Fork movement “hum.” I’m curious, do you happen to know what the specs are on Tuning Fork movements. Do they run, like +/- 60 seconds per day?
Thanks again for your interesting comments!
Regards,
Bryan
June 10th, 2008 at 6:09 am
Hi Bryan,
It’s amazing to find out that the Type II movements have a five-year battery life considering that they were designed decades ago. I’m not an expert on watch batteries and I guess either the cell that the 7546 uses have a larger capacity or the caliber itself is very frugal on battery power.
My V657 based quartz chrono is rated for 2 years on the average while the 7T32s that I own have a 3-year battery life, despite my not using the stopwatch functions. My analog-digital H023 Seikos fare 2.5 years at the most (never used the alarm function either).
Of course, Seiko’s 8F-series Perpetual Calendars are gifted with 10-year battery life only because it uses high capacity lithium cells instead of silver oxide ones.
This is an excellent article and I liked reading the piece of history about Mr Teruo Isazaki relating his problems in finding phased out mercury oxide batteries.
I wonder if Seiko has plans to revive their highly accurate, 32kHz quartz movements like the 7546 for the masses in addition to their +/- 20sec/year 8F calibers and their high end GS quartz modules.
BTW, thanks a heap for including my watch blog into GMT+9’s blogroll, I appreciate it a lot.
cheers,
Stratman.
June 11th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Hi Stratman,
Yes, I was also surprised (and pleased) to learn the 7546 movement uses a 5-year battery. In fact, it was the first 5-year-battery-powered watch Seiko released (along with the one in the 7903, also released in 1977).
You mentioned the 8F caliber; I’m a big fan of the 8J caliber movement, btw. I’ve owned two Seiko watches with that movement. One of them kept time to +/-4 seconds per year the first year I owned it. I don’t recall exactly how it performed the second, only that it didn’t do quite as well (but still was accurate — around spec, I think).
Our pleasure to include a link to your website in our blog roll. Thanks again for including ours in yours.
Regards,
Bryan
June 12th, 2008 at 12:43 am
Hi Bryan,
You will be surprised when you will read this: typical accuracy of a Tuning Fork watch was close to +/- 1 s per day, that means much better than much of mechanical watches, and close to “standard” quartz accuracy (+/- 20 s or +/- 15 s per month).
Some models, like Omega f300 or Omega Megasonic were even COSC certified chronometers!
I have written accuracy “was” close to +/-1 s per day. Effectively, it is very hard today to find watchmakers able to repair or to adjust tuning fork watches. Bulova has stopped any support and just proposes to replace the movement by a quartz one.
Moreover, the use of silver oxide batteries instead of mercury ones induce a downgrade of accuracy, because the voltage is higher. Sometimes the “phasing” of the watch can be adjusted. Other solutions include changing a coil in the watch (in order to have the same voltage as with original batteries), or use “Accucells”, which are modified batteries (with the add of a resistor) giving the same voltage as original mercury ones (with the caveat of the need to change battery every 10 months instead of every year).
This said, if you wanted a tuning fork watch, the best way, imho, would be to buy a NOS one and use accucell batteries. Sometimes, NOS f300, Accutron or Hisonic are proposed on eBay…
With a +/- 1 s intrinsic accuracy, with a “sixties” design, and taking into account improvements in nano-mechanics and microelectronics, one could expect that 21st century designed tuning fork watches could compete with quartz! (Note that quartz functionment is close to the one of a tuning fork! Simply, vibrations are counted by a microcircuit instead of being changed in rotational movement).
Best Regards,
MikeNovember
June 12th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Hi Mike,
Good stuff, thanks for sharing!
Regards,
Bryan
June 15th, 2008 at 7:05 am
Hi Bryan,
Very cool article! My stepfather was in Japan a few times in the 70’s for business. He was there last in 1976 and he bought a type II seiko. it is a bit different than yours though. For one, it has a screw in the back(i have since seen some of the watches on auctions have them, but they are quite rare). I cannot remember how long his battery was but i do have full model info written down
which is: 4622-8000 and dates to august 1976
i do not have pictures of it though:(
the screw looks like this (from scwf archive)
http://www.larrybiggs.net/scwf/index.php?mod=103&action=1&id=1160924232
thanx for the article:)
June 15th, 2008 at 9:30 am
Hi ptolemy,
That must have been quite an experience for your stepfather, traveling to Japan on business in the mid-’70s. If you don’t mind my asking, what business was he in?
I’ve never heard of a Type II with a battery hatch, although I know models from when your stepfather was in Japan, like the Quartz Superior, Crown Quartz, and King Quartz used 48xx stream quartz movements with those casebacks. If you do happen to take some pictures of his watch, I’d be interested to see them.
Regards,
Bryan
June 16th, 2008 at 2:10 am
Ya, he was a pretty interesting guy in his prime
I have seen some on yahoo.jp auctions over the last 6-12 month. but they are very rare. i think i seen maybe 3-4 total.
he does not wear the watch nowdays, i have tried to get it cleaned up, replace battery but he wouldn’t listen. i do not have pictures and he is out of my reach for 3 month; however when we talk on the phone i will ask him ig he left it at the house and if so, i’ll go and snap few pics.
from what i remember, the watch looks exactly the same style as one you pictured. just a bit different hands and different color of the dial
i remember, back in early 90’s, he used to heat the back a little to open the screw. he said that the screw kinda snapped into place after, so it had to be heated to open. i can only guess that the screw is made so that u would not need to open the hole case and that the battery can be replaced by anyone.
regarding of what he did, drop me an email
August 5th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Bryan, very interesting article on the meaning of the type II quartz watches. I’m attempting to determine the initial production year for five of the Seiko analog quartz caliber series originating during the 1970’s: 46, 58, 71, 78 and 82. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
As an aside I have a dozen tuning fork watches humming along. Eleven are Bulova Accutrons with the 218 movement and one Omega f300. I use the Energizer 344 battery in all of them with no problem (the 214 Accutrons can be touchier with the 1.5 volt battery).
Regards
Gary
December 14th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
I have a 7546 quartz watch that I have had for some 30 years, it’s in use daily, but it does not feature the Type II logo. Ok it is showings signs of age now but still keeps perfect time and gives me no problems whatsoever. I remember taking it into a jeweller some years ago to have a new battery fitted and he commented on how large the movement was compared to the more modern watches. As I recall at the time when it was bought it wasn’t the most expensive of watches but as my Father said “buy the best you can afford” so I did and that investment has paid off handsomely.
January 17th, 2010 at 10:55 pm
I have a 7546 (7546-8370 A1) which I bought new in 1979 (hence the username I chose!) for which I paid 70 GBP (Seventy British Pounds). It has a black face and both Day and Date.
Although at the time it was quite expensive, relative to my nett take home pay of around 30 GBP per week, I was subsidising the purchase with money from an insurance payout (motorbike ‘written off’ in accident in which my previous (Oris) watch had been destroyed) so was not penny pinching.
Also, from what I remember, there wasn’t a plethora of ‘value’ brand (cheaper) watches available to choose from at that time.
Anyway, my Seiko 7546 has outperformed (reliability and battery life) all the other watches that I’ve been given and it’s outlasted many of them which either stopped working completely or I got fed up with due to the need for frequent battery renewal.
I reckon that I do get around 5 years from each batter, although I never bother to record each change, so I don’t know for sure. A few years ago I bought a ‘tool’ to unscrew the back so that I could fit a replacement battery myself, which I wanted to do as a matter of principle because I had been quote 15 GBP by a High Street shop to supply and fit a battery. Doing it myself cost 5 GBP, including the ‘tool’ and next time (around 2012) it’ll be only the battery at approx 1 GBP!
I now wear my 7546 every day, have never had it ’serviced’ and don’t worry about accuracy (although I’m sure it’s fine) because I regularly check that it’s around 5 minutes ‘fast’ which helps to prevent me being late because I’m ‘last minute’ kind of guy!
So, my experience seems to be the same as that of “IT1949″ in post 18. with my 70 GBP spent in 1979 being a good investment, although it is possible to buy a very similar looking brand new ‘Seiko Quartz’ watch for about the same price today, in 2010, 31 years later!?