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Meet the Seiko Superior 9983-7000
52MONDAYZSEIKO
Seiko 9983-7000 Superior – 52Mondayz, week #52-2019
Vintage quartz grazing the 1000 dollars price tier
BY TOMAS ROSPUTINSKY
DECEMBER 23, 2019
4 MIN READ
https://www.fratellowatches.com/seiko-9983-7000-superior-52mondayz-week-52-2019/
Seiko’s persistent devotion in the 1970s to chase precision down to just a few seconds a year is pretty fascinating. Meet the Seiko Superior 9983-7000.
Making new friends is a part of the watch collecting passion that I truly enjoy. When I get a message from a fellow collector in Slovakia, the small country where I live, the joy is even greater. That’s how I met Michal too. He dropped me a line a few months ago and added a few snaps of watches from his collection. A couple of days ago, when he came to Bratislava, we finally had lunch together and, unsurprisingly, talked watches. What was surprising though, was that he trusted me enough to lend me one of his favorite watches for a few weeks, the Seiko Superior 9983-7000. [h=3]Best Seiko quartz movement[/h] Listening to the story behind the Seiko Superior is as exciting for me as reading about the birth of Silicon Valley. Seriously, if you told me a few months ago that I would ever get excited about quartz watches, I would have had you for a fool. Who is the fool now? It takes a lot of time and training to organize your mind around the “holy grail” Seiko references. And now I have to clear even more space for another reference coming from the era of the quartz precision chase?! To make sure that chaos doesn’t ensue and to help you understand the essence of today’s story more quickly, I will help myself out with this Grand Seiko page on quartz movements. The chart you see below lists the Crème de la Crème of Seiko quartz movements, with us taking a closer look at the most accurate of them all.
[h=3]Seiko Astron was just the beginning[/h] In 1969, Seiko introduced the world’s first quartz wristwatch called Astron 35SQ. Its accuracy to within ±5 seconds a month was already stunning. But it was not enough for Seiko. Research that was backed by a lot of investments continued not only in the Suwa but the Daini factory too. Thanks to their quick progress and the implementation of production and assembly automation, the already scary price tags reaching up to 450,000 – 1,000,000 Yen decreased considerably.
[h=3]Problem-solving[/h] The key problem was the resonance frequency of quartz oscillators that varied with temperature changes. But again, the masterminds from Japan came up with a solution consisting of two quartz oscillators set alongside each other. One was used to control time and the second sub-oscillator to detect temperature. The high level of accuracy at ±5 seconds a year was achieved by adjusting for the variations resulting from temperature changes. A more thin profile and smaller power consumption was just a bonus for new Superior Twin Quartz owners. If they wanted to grab the latest feature from the front pages of the 1978 Seiko Catalog, they had to pay 230.000 Japanese Yen.
52MONDAYZSEIKO
Seiko 9983-7000 Superior – 52Mondayz, week #52-2019
Vintage quartz grazing the 1000 dollars price tier
BY TOMAS ROSPUTINSKY
DECEMBER 23, 2019
4 MIN READ
https://www.fratellowatches.com/seiko-9983-7000-superior-52mondayz-week-52-2019/
Seiko’s persistent devotion in the 1970s to chase precision down to just a few seconds a year is pretty fascinating. Meet the Seiko Superior 9983-7000.
Making new friends is a part of the watch collecting passion that I truly enjoy. When I get a message from a fellow collector in Slovakia, the small country where I live, the joy is even greater. That’s how I met Michal too. He dropped me a line a few months ago and added a few snaps of watches from his collection. A couple of days ago, when he came to Bratislava, we finally had lunch together and, unsurprisingly, talked watches. What was surprising though, was that he trusted me enough to lend me one of his favorite watches for a few weeks, the Seiko Superior 9983-7000. [h=3]Best Seiko quartz movement[/h] Listening to the story behind the Seiko Superior is as exciting for me as reading about the birth of Silicon Valley. Seriously, if you told me a few months ago that I would ever get excited about quartz watches, I would have had you for a fool. Who is the fool now? It takes a lot of time and training to organize your mind around the “holy grail” Seiko references. And now I have to clear even more space for another reference coming from the era of the quartz precision chase?! To make sure that chaos doesn’t ensue and to help you understand the essence of today’s story more quickly, I will help myself out with this Grand Seiko page on quartz movements. The chart you see below lists the Crème de la Crème of Seiko quartz movements, with us taking a closer look at the most accurate of them all.