SEIKO (Seikosha) Champion, October 1961

— Japanese virtues, in a Showa setting —

The Seiko Champion arrived at the start of the 1960s and became the watch young Japan aspired to, walking alongside the country's high-growth years. Sharp, and yet somehow warm — an honest kind of beauty that is close to the origin of Japanese watchmaking.

— Twelve lines of light —

Twelve rays run out from the centre to the edge of the dial, and the silky surface changes with the angle of the light. The slight ageing particular to vintage gives it the depth of a good print.

The sharp dolphin hands and the smartly drawn markers are beautifully judged against each other.

— A Seikosha beat —

Open the case back for golden wheels and the proud stamp "SEIKOSHA 17 JEWELS": a hand-wound mechanism made before quartz existed, with everything its makers had. Listen and the comfortable low-beat tick is still there after fifty years.

— Autumn 1961 —

The serial number places manufacture in October 1961, in the autumn of a country full of energy a few years short of the Tokyo Olympics.

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