Revelation Per Minute: Seiko Chronograph 23j 6138-8000

[george_]

The late-1960s was a time punctuated by revolutionary changes in all aspects of life. Frontiers were explored and conquered (some not). It was the time when the Apollo missions took man to where no man has ever ventured. It was when gay rights activism took its roots, while the miniskirt crept upwards to become a micro-skirt. And Sesame Street, featuring the Jim Henson’s Muppets, began their debut on television.

In the quiet corridor of watch manufacturers, the late-60s was a tumultuous time. Another kind or revolution was threatening to bring an end to watchmaking as they knew it. In 1969, Seiko of Japan introduced the first quartz wristwatch, the Astron, and not long after, the Swiss watch industry would face an onslaught that would change the face of the industry. Those were troubled times, and the Swiss watch industry was in desperate need for a revolution of its own. The Swiss chose to accomplish what, until that time, was one of the greatest unresolved horological paradigm--the automatic-winding chronograph.

This was a problem that had preoccupied both the Swiss and the Japanese for some time. Although chronographs have been around since the mid-19th Century and finding their way onto wrists by the early part of the 20th Century, designing a chronograph complication in a self-winding watch was a great challenge. If you’ve seen a manual-winding chronograph movement, like the famous Lemania 1873 (aka Omega 861), you’ll know how crowded the components already are. At the top plane of the movement, the chronograph gear train takes up the space that would otherwise accommodate the winding rotor. Furthermore, the centre seconds accumulator run directly off the chrono wheel at the centre of the movement, right where you’d otherwise find the automatic framework on a self-winding movement. Until the late 1960s, it was practically impossible to build an automatic chronograph.

The question of who was the first to do so is a topic of much debate. What most agree on this that there were 3 manufactures/companies that did so, all within a few months of each other. The year was 1969. In Europe, there were two groups: Zenith, who has taken over Martel Watch--a chronograph manufacture--in the early 1960s. The other was a consortium of 4 companies--Breitling, Hamilton-Buren, Dubois-Dépraz and Heuer.

Zenith began its development in the early-60s and concentrated on designing a classic column wheel chronograph fully-integrated into the architecture of an automatic movement. The advantage to this approach is that the feel of the column wheel is retained, while the height the movement is kept to a minimum, compared to if one were to add a chronograph module to an existing automatic movement. The result was the thinnest chronograph movement ever made at the time (it however remained so for only 2 years).

At Basel Watch Fair 1969, Zenith unveiled its creation--the world’s first fully-integrated automatic chronograph (though often misquoted out of context to imply the first). At the same fair, the consortium of Breitling, Hamilton-Buren, Dubois-Dépraz and Heuer also introduced the world to their own first automatic chronograph.

The Consortium took a wholly different approach, and decided to focus their effort on creating a chronograph module that could be added to an existing automatic calibre. To solve the positioning/packaging paradox, they chose a base automatic movement that did not have the winding rotor in the centre of the module. Thanks to Hamilton-Buren’s development of the micro-rotor, the problem of the winding rotor being in the same position as the chrono wheel and seconds accumulator was no longer a problem. The joint project started in the mid-60s, and The Consortium was successful in creating, undisputedly, the first modular automatic chronograph with a micro-rotor (though, again often misquoted to imply “the first”). The Calibre 11 (aka Chronomatic) was born.

Despite the controversy of whether it was Zenith or the Consortium of Breitling, Hamilton-Buren, Dubois-Dépraz and Heuer that was the first of the Swiss, Zenith went ahead and named their movement El Primero ("The First”).

At the same time, another horological revolution was taken place in the East. In the years leading up to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, Seiko of Japan--the Official Olympics Timekeeper--had gained considerable experience in developing hand-winding chronographs. The Japanese manufacture introduced the Cal. 571x manual-wind chronograph in 1964 as a result of the effort. No doubt to prove that they were as capable in producing high-end calibres as the Swiss, Seiko entered the race to be the first to offer an automatic chronograph.

Within a couple of months of Basel 1969, Seiko released Cal. 6139, which utilized a new coupling system, developed and patented by Seiko, for engaging the chronograph, such that backlash is eliminated. It was a revolutionary idea--the world’s first fully-integrated automatic chronograph with a vertical clutch mechanism. And while Seiko 6139 may not have been the first to be announced, it was indeed the first to be available to the public by August 1969, beating both the Zenith El Primero and the Calibre 11/Chronomatic to the stores.


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