The year 2024 marks the 160th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Japan and Switzerland. The relationship between the two countries was solidified with the signing of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce in 1864. At that time, timepieces played a key role in establishing diplomatic ties. How did Western timepieces become popular in Japan, where mechanical timepieces were still relatively unfamiliar? The man who unravels this history is Nobuyoshi Okawa. How did Okawa become one of Japan's leading collectors of trading post clocks and a leading expert on trading post clocks? While viewing his historically significant collection, we learn about the circumstances of his collecting, his captivating personality, and his rich life in timepieces.
A businessman, he began collecting clocks in the sixth grade of elementary school and has owned approximately 20,000 pieces to date. He is known as one of the leading collectors and researchers of trading post clocks. He wrote the column "Tales of the Trading Post Clock Collection," which ran in the watch magazine "World's Watches" (published by World Photo Press) from 1998 to 2001. He has also appeared in many media outlets, including "Yokohama Clock Story" (TV Kanagawa), which aired in 2008.
Photographs by Takafumi Okuda
Tomoyo Takai: Interview and text
Text by Tomoyo Takai
Edited by Chronos Japan (Yukiya Suzuki, Yuto Hosoda)
[Article published in the July 2024 issue of Kronos Japan]
"We have collected trading post clocks as evidence to verify historical facts."
Anyone with an interest in trading post clocks has likely come across this name at least once: Mr. Nobuyoshi Okawa, one of Japan's leading collectors of trading post clocks. Mr. Okawa was born into a family of businessmen, and while taking over the family business, he began collecting clocks at an early age. To date, he has collected approximately 2 clocks. He has meticulously researched and recorded the origins and specifications of each clock, and as he has accumulated knowledge, he has eventually become known as a researcher of trading post clocks.
He wrote the serialized article "Tales of Collecting Trading Post Clocks" for the watch specialty magazine "Watches of the World" (published by World Photo Press) for approximately three years starting in 1998. He has also been involved in a wide range of activities related to trading post clocks, including appearing on television programs and providing information for related events. Until Okawa began his research, no one had researched trading post clocks in as much detail as he has, and there were probably no systematically recorded materials.
This year, 2024, marks the 160th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Japan and Switzerland. It was indeed watches that played a key role in building the relationship between the two countries. Okawa's records are all the more important now when it comes to understanding how Western-style watches became widespread in Japan, which was still the age of the samurai. His contributions will surely be treasured and passed down in the watch industry for years to come. With due respect and a humble writing, I would like to share with you the story of Okawa's life with watches, which I learned about during this interview.
"After attending the 'François Perregaux Memorial Service' held at the end of last year, I had dreams about François for three nights in a row. I thought long and hard about whether to accept this interview, but because of that, I decided to do it," Okawa said, and yet he kindly invited our reporting team into his home.
The "François Perregaux Memorial Service" that Okawa is referring to is an annual event held on December 18th, the death anniversary of François Perregaux, the Swiss watchmaker who dedicated himself to popularizing Western watches in Japan during the late Edo period. As his name suggests, he was a member of the Girard-Perregaux family. Born in Le Locle, Switzerland in 1834, he traveled to Japan at the age of 25 and worked to popularize mechanical watches. He never returned to his hometown, passing away in 1877 in Yokohama, where he had been trading watches.
At the memorial service, watch enthusiasts gather to pay their respects at François's grave in the Yokohama Foreign Cemetery. Okawa has participated in this event for many years, offering watches associated with François Perregaux at the grave and playing a role in communicating François' achievements to attendees. At the memorial service held at the end of last year, 2023, Okawa also unveiled two pocket watches related to François Perregaux that he had recently found. "Every year, as the anniversary of Perregaux's death approaches, for some reason I find watches related to him," Okawa says.
When we visited his home for the interview, as we entered the entrance, we saw family photos and favorite items displayed here and there. It was a space that exuded the warmth of home. The two rooms at the back were Okawa's clock room, which in contrast to the other rooms was filled with tasteful, antique clocks, storage fixtures, and machine tools. One was a clock storage room, and the other was a room for clock repairs and document storage. Okawa not only owns pocket watches, but also a wide range of antique table clocks, wall clocks, and luxury brand wristwatches.
However, the core of the collection are pocket watches sold by foreign trading houses during the Meiji period. He says he particularly prefers "things with a more sophisticated look." Opening a storage drawer for watches that he says he ordered from an antiques shop, Okawa selected a few from his vast collection and showed them to us. Several of the watches feature traditional Japanese colored gold cases. During this period, watches made with different materials and craftsmanship than those used in Western watches were in vogue, and more modest materials than gold or silver were apparently used for watches. Several of the selected watches are also decorated with Nunome Zogan (textile inlay) patterns, which were cultivated in the ancient capital.
"When the sword ban was issued, armor craftsmen who were on the verge of losing their jobs probably turned to clocks as a new decorative accessory." Seeing the actual items in use gives a vivid sense of what life was like in the past, something that can only be known from historical documents. "I've mainly collected trading post clocks as evidence to verify historical facts," says Okawa. There are also a wide variety of pocket watches made of various materials and specifications on display.
At this point, I finally asked Okawa something I had always wanted to know: "Why did you start researching trading post clocks in the first place?" When I asked this, Okawa smiled and took out a shiny silver pocket watch and answered, "This is the first watch I ever owned, and it's the one that taught me how fascinating timepieces are. My grandmother found this old silver pocket watch at a flea market and bought it for me when I was in the fifth grade of elementary school, thinking that her grandson would be happy."
The mechanical movement of this large clock captured the young Okawa's heart. Completely fascinated by clocks, Okawa's interest expanded beyond the clocks themselves to include information about their types and origins. It was in his second year of junior high school that he learned that the pocket watch given to him by his grandmother was sold by Colon Trading Company, located at No. 10 in the Yokohama Foreign Settlement during the Meiji period. It was when he found an old newspaper advertisement in the library featuring a clock of the same model. This series of events, which led to his learning about the existence of trading post clocks, would become the formative experience that shaped Okawa's life in watches.
Okawa's watch collecting, which began in sixth grade, accelerated during his time at university. A travel enthusiast, Okawa visited every corner of Japan, visiting historic watch shops and antique stores in each location, and gradually increasing the number of watches he owned. Okawa's sociable personality and bold buying habits (he once acquired as many as 250 watches in one go) endeared him to the shop owners, and gradually they began to send him more and more information about watches. This is how Okawa began to collect rare and valuable watches.
At the same time, Okawa also began collecting information on these clocks, steadily building up his knowledge. He says he frequently visited local libraries and the Yokohama Port Opening Museum. "There were no copy machines in those days, so I would copy the trading post marks I found in documents using tracing paper and a sharpened pencil." The records from that time are still neatly stored today. The meticulousness of their contents and the overwhelming amount of information they contain are truly impressive.
He taught himself about mechanical structures and even became able to repair them himself. Even today, Okawa's workroom is stocked with a vast array of tools and parts, enough to rival any local watch shop. His vast collection of watches, his knowledge of each and every one of them, his tireless desire to improve, and the connections and relationships of trust he has built through them all have made Okawa the "master of trading post clocks" he is today. And just as Okawa calls his collection "evidence of historical fact," the information on each watch he has collected has accurately filled in the lost history of clocks from the end of the Edo period to the Meiji period.
Even now that he has achieved great success, Okawa still maintains an undiminished curiosity about watches. When asked what the source of this curiosity is, it turns out to be his love for François Perregaux. The more he researches Perregaux, the more he sees his personality, and he continues to be captivated by it.
"I don't know what kind of person François actually was, but from reading various historical documents and imagining things, I believe he was a very good person. His contributions are highly praised, as can be seen in reports such as Aimé Humbert (=Droz). Even so, I believe he lived a lonely life. When he first arrived in Japan, the country still used the seasonal time system, and Swiss watches were hardly of any interest. He must have spent many long, difficult years groping in the dark in a foreign land with no family. It seems that there was a time when he couldn't sell his watches, so he barely made a living by selling carbonated drinks to foreign ships."
With the Meiji calendar reform of 1873, there were signs that his years of hard work would finally be rewarded, but four years later he fell ill and passed away at the age of 43.
"I'm sure he only achieved half of his goal. I would like to help him realize in a different way what François was unable to accomplish. His achievements are enormous. The reason why Japan has become such a watch kingdom is because of the DNA that has been woven since the Meiji period. I believe that his passion and proof of his life still remain somewhere. I don't know how long I can do this, but I will continue to search for it forever. Even detective novels are more interesting when they have more mysteries, right?"
