Grand Seiko became independent from Seiko as a brand in 2017 and has continued to grow as an international brand without design restrictions. Let's take a look at the history of Seiko and Grand Seiko, the circumstances surrounding their independence, and the appeal of Grand Seiko that has only increased since their independence.
The Difference Between Seiko and Grand Seiko
Seiko is a long-established watch manufacturer with a history of approximately 140 years, and has achieved many great feats, including the release of the world's first quartz watch, the Astron, in 1969, and a watch equipped with its unique drive mechanism, Spring Drive, in 1999.
Seiko's History
The company was founded in 1881 as "Hattori Watch Shop," which mainly repaired and sold used watches, and in 1892, the watch manufacturing factory "Seikosha" was established with the aim of "producing exquisite watches." In 1913, the company released the first domestically produced wristwatch, the "Laurel."
Later, in 1923, the company's headquarters and factory were completely destroyed by fire in the Great Kanto Earthquake, but the model released the following year was given the "Seiko" brand name, signifying a new start.
In 1959, the company put into practical use the "Magic Lever," a bidirectional pawl-type winding mechanism. The "Gyro Marvel," an automatic watch equipped with this revolutionary mechanism, quickly took the world by storm, greatly accelerating the popularization of automatic watches.
In 1895, a new store was opened on the corner of Ginza 4-chome. The photo shows the store in 1907.
The birth of the first Grand Seiko
In 1960, with the easing of tariffs on imported watches scheduled for the following year, Seiko released the first Grand Seiko as a top-quality domestically produced watch to compete with Swiss luxury watches.
In 1967, Grand Seiko released the 44GS, a hand-wound watch that defined the "Seiko style," and the 62GS, Grand Seiko's first automatic watch.The following year, they released the 61GS, a high-precision automatic model that used the Magic Lever system and had a frequency of 36,000 vibrations per hour.
After that, the brand went dormant for a while, but was revived in 1988 with the 95GS, Grand Seiko's first quartz watch, boasting high accuracy of ±10 seconds per year. The 2004 model adopted Seiko's proprietary drive system, Spring Drive.
