1969 Quartz Astron 50th Anniversary Limited Edition

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1969 Quartz Astron 50th Anniversary Limited Edition - Seiko
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A tribute to a watchmaking revolution. The 50th anniversary of the Quartz Astron is celebrated in a limited edition GPS Solar watch.

A tribute to a watchmaking revolution. The 50th anniversary of the Quartz Astron is celebrated in a limited edition GPS Solar watch.

On December 25th fifty years ago, Seiko introduced the world’s first quartz wristwatch. It was a watch that revolutionized the watchmaking industry and its launch remains one of the most important landmarks in Seiko’s history. The Quartz Astron set a new standard in wristwatch precision with an accuracy rate of ±5 seconds per month, made possible by several technological advances including the tuning fork shaped quartz oscillator and the open type step motor which are still standard components of quartz watches today.

Currently, on the fiftieth anniversary of the original Quartz Astron, a new creation in the Astron GPS Solar collection pays tribute to its celebrated predecessor and brings together the two revolutionary advances in watchmaking history that share the Astron name.

11969 Quartz Astron 50th Anniversary Limited Edition

This new limited edition watch brings back to life the form and design of the 1969 Quartz Astron in its entirety. Both the elegance of the celebrated timepiece and its characteristically futuristic feel are reflected in the curved silhouette of the case, the wide case lugs and the thin bezel. Like the 1969 watch, the case is in 18K yellow gold with each delicately hand carved by the highest skilled craftsmen and women. The dial has a subtle vertical hairline pattern and the hands and multi-faceted indexes are thin and carry a black line on the surface, just as on the first Quartz Astron.

11969 Quartz Astron 50th Anniversary Limited Edition

The limited edition watch houses a new GPS Solar movement that allows it to have the slimness and grace of the 1969 watch’s form. The new Caliber 3X22 is the world’s thinnest (as of October 31, 2019, based on Seiko's research) GPS solar caliber to be fitted in a watch case and is made possible by the highest level of modern watchmaking technology. Reduced to its essentials of time adjustment and timekeeping, the watch connects automatically up to twice a day to the GPS network to maintain its precision of one second every 100,000 years, and when time zone adjustment is required, with a simple push of a single button, the hands move faster than ever thanks to the system that moves each hand independently.

The watch, which is offered in a special wooden box with the Quartz Astron 50th Anniversary logo, is available as a limited edition of just 50.

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