A History of the Citizen Watch Company, from the Pages of Watchtime Magazine
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
THE WORLD OF FINE WATCHES SPOTLIGHT www.watchtime.com A HISTORY OF THE CITIZEN WATCH COMPANY, FROM THE PAGES OF WATCHTIME MAGAZINE CCIITTIIZZEENN THe HisTory of ciTizen One of the original Citizen pocket watches that went on THE sale in December 1924 CITIZEN WATCH STORY How a Tokyo jeweler’s experiment in making pocket watches 84 years ago led to the creation of a global watch colossus n the 1920s, the young Emperor of Japan, than the imports. To that end, Yamazaki found - Goto. The mayor was a friend of Yamazaki’s. Hirohito, received a gift that reportedly de - ed in 1918 the Shokosha Watch Research Insti - When the fledgling watch manufacturer was I lighted him. The gift was from Kamekichi tute in Tokyo’s Totsuka district. Using Swiss ma - searching for a name for his product, he asked Yamazaki, a Tokyo jeweler, who had an ambi - chinery, Yamazaki and his team began experi - Goto for ideas. Goto suggested Citizen. A tion to manufacture pocket watches in Japan. menting in the production of pocket watches. watch is, to a great extent, a luxury item, he ex - The Japanese watch market at that time By the end of 1924, they began commercial plained, but Yamazaki was aiming to make af - was dominated by foreign makes, primarily production of their first product, the Caliber fordable watches. It was Goto’s hope that every Swiss brands, followed by Americans like 16 pocket watch, which they sold under the citizen would benefit from and enjoy the time - Waltham and Elgin. Yamazaki felt the time brand name Citizen. pieces developed by the Shokosha Institute. might be right to begin manufacturing watch - The name was the brainchild of no less a So it was that Citizen became a watch es domestically that would be less expensive personage than the mayor of Tokyo, Shinpei brand. It was one of these first watches, made Kamekichi Yamazaki Yosaburo Nakajima Tokyo Mayor Shinpei Goto THe HisTory of ciTizen Movement inspection ducing country, and Citizen the world’s top Citizen Watch Co. executives in watch-producing firm. front of the Yodobashi sales division building under construction in But that is exactly what happened. Hirohito 1934. Seated in the first row, fourth was still on the Chrysanthemum Throne in from right is Citizen president 1981 when Japan toppled Switzerland as the Yosaburo Nakajima. Next to him top watch producing power and in 1984 when to his right is factory manager and company co-founder Ryoichi Suzuki. Citizen Watch Co., successor to the Shokosha Watch Research Institute, outproduced every other watch company in the world. This is the story of Citizen’s rise, from a small experimental producer of mechanical pocket watches, to a primary player in the quartz watch revolution that rocked the watch world in the 1970s and ‘80s, to the leadership posi - tion it enjoys today in the ongoing quartz watch revolution. In 2001, Citizen produced an astounding 308 million watches and watch movements, one of every four watches made. It has fulfilled in ways that he could never have in the European style, with the winding crown imagined Kamekichi Yamazaki’s dream of at 12 o’clock, large Arabic numerals, and a making watches available to everyone. seconds subdial at 6 o’clock, that was present - ed to the Emperor. Auspicious start The Emperor owned watches, of course, Kamekichi Yamazaki was one of a new breed but few, if any, were made in Japan. He was of watch entrepreneurs that sprung up in said to remark at how pleased he was that he Japan in the second decade of the 20th centu - no longer had to always rely on foreign time - ry. Japanese watchmaking was in its infancy. pieces and that Japan was capable of produc - While Japan had mastered the art of produc - ing watches of its own. Eventually he wrote a ing wall clocks in the 1880s, pocket watches letter to the Shokosha Institute, praising the were a different story. In 1894 there were clock watch’s quality and precision. producers in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Nagoya As pleased as the Emperor was with his Cit - manufacturing more than 200,000 units, but izen, it would have been preposterous to sug - Japan had yet to produce a single watch. gest that the Emperor would one day see Hoshimi Uchida, a professor specializing in Japan become the world’s leading watch pro - Japan’s industrial history and author of a chronicle of the Japanese watch and clock industry, ex - plains: “The mass production Inspecting a wheel of watches involved technical through a projector difficulties far greater than those in clockmaking. Watch - es, with their more compli - Main plate processing cated mechanisms – balance wheels, balance springs, an - chor escapements, winding mechanisms, irregular forms of bridges, and pinion staffs – required delicate machining using specialized tools small - er than the general purpose machines available for clock - making. The machines need - THe HisTory of ciTizen To show the durability of its was higher than ever before. “Clocks and Parashock watch, Citizen dropped watches were the first Western-style, durable the watch from a helicopter in front of the Kyoto train station in 1956. consumer goods in modern Japan,” Uchida writes. As demand for watches grew, new en - trepreneurs saw potential profits in watchmak - ing. Hattori’s Seikosha began to get some com - petition. By 1920, six firms had begun watch production. By 1922, there were 15. Prominent among the newcomers was Kamekichi Yamazaki’s Shokosha factory. We know this because of a pocket watch competi - tion staged as part of the Tokyo Commemora - To show how waterproof tive Peace Exhibition of 1923. In a fascinating Parawater was, Citizen staged foreshadowing of epic watch battles to come a a test, tossing 120 of them into half-century later, it pitted the pocket watches the Pacific Ocean in buoys. Ocean currents carried the self- of two Japanese producers against those of two winding watches to the North foreign producers, one Swiss, one American. It American coast, where they was a David vs. Goliath matchup both ways. were retrieved, still working, The two Japanese producers were Seikosha after a year in the Pacific. (Seiko) and Shokosha (Citizen). Citizen clearly was in the David role. Seikosha/Seiko at that time had been producing watches for 27 years, was Japan’s leading watch producer and had even begun exporting watches to South - east Asia. Shokosha/Citizen, on the other hand, had been in existence for a mere five years and had yet to market a single watch. Both of them were Davids, though, com - pared to the Swiss Nardin chronometer watch and the American Waltham they were up against. In the 1920s, the Swiss and the Amer - ed for fabricating watch parts were numerous, number of Japanese watch producers on one icans were the world’s two dominant watch expensive and difficult to obtain.” finger of one hand: Seikosha, forerunner of to - powers. The first company to take a stab at watch - day’s Seiko Corporation. Founded in Tokyo in The watches were tested for three days in making was Osaka Watch Inc. It was a valiant 1893 by Kintaro Hattori, a watch and clock the physics classroom of Tokyo Higher Techni - effort. Osaka imported watchmaking merchant, Seikosha began producing cal School by independent Japanese judges. equipment from the United States as pocket watches the year after Osaka. Nine watches under various brands from well as eight American and two British But Seikosha, too, struggled with them. Seikosha and three Citizen brand watches machinists. In 1895, it produced the According to Uchida, Seikosha did not from Shokosha were tested against the Nar - first Japanese pocket watches, later begin to make a profit on watches din and the Waltham. As it happened, the known as “sakameri” watches, a (its cash cow was wall clocks) until Japanese watches got clobbered by the for - combination of the words “Osa - 1911, 15 years after it began eigners. The judges noted in their final report ka” and “American.” But watch production. that the Japanese timepieces were below for - watchmaking proved too chal - The turning point for Japan’s eign standards. “Some showed a difference lenging and Osaka Watch Inc. fledgling watch industry was of three minutes a day, and even the same failed in 1902. Nippon Pocket World War I. The war creat - model watch, depending on the product, ex - Watch Manufacturing, an - ed a business boom in Japan. hibited a wide range of error.” As an example other firm that began making It spurred the growth of Japan’s they cited the results of the test with watches watches in the late 1890s, suf - middle class; demand for watches in the vertical position with the crown facing fered the same fate. up. The average daily difference of the for - For the first two decades of the Citizen’s Parawater was Japan’s eign watches was 4 seconds slow. The 20th century, you could count the first water-resistant watch. Seikosha watches varied from 6 seconds to THe HisTory of ciTizen 62 seconds slow. The Citizen watches were timepieces, fuse mechanisms and other timing Dropping Parashock from a 48 seconds slow. devices for the military. For the Japanese watch helicopter at a baseball game, 1956 That the Japanese timepieces did not fare industry, the war was devastating. Another 20 so well against the foreigners was not a sur - years would pass before Japanese watch pro - prise. Switzerland and the United States had a duction again reached 5 million units. huge head start on Japan in watch technology. During the war, Japanese watch firms shift - What was surprising, though, was that Citizen ed production from dangerous Tokyo (Citizen fared so well against Seikosha.