One man's trash is another man’s treasure

Recently at the Watchmakers AGM auction there was a lot consisting of four Seiko spare parts catalogues. Since Seiko's spare parts policy is to keep the parts in stock for 20 years and since the catalogues were from 1971, I was the only bidder. Quite frankly the bid was just a courtesy because a fellow watchmaker who dragged them in would pay five dollars to get rid of them. Yet to any student of horology, watch spare parts catalogues are often of more interest than the parts themselves. And there it was, a data sheet of Calibre 9119A. A 15 jewel movement in production from 1961 to 1971, used exclusively in Japanese railway watches. Every single component, with catalogue numbers and full descriptions. Absolutely priceless.

It’s been ages since we’ve talked about railway pocket watches. Which is a good reason to feature quite a rare Seiko railway watch today. It is a rather strange watch because the case back comes with no description except for a symbol and an issue number. It was clear that it would take a fair bit of effort to identify the railway that issued this Seiko pocket watch and even Japanese railway enthusiasts struggle to provide more information. Eventually we got the answer. Hanshin electric railway company that operates a 48.9km line, linking Osaka and Kobe. The name Hanshin comes from the second character for Osaka (大阪) and the first character for Kobe (神戸) combine to form the company name, 阪神, which can be read Han-shin.

Needless to say, a little historical gem like this is something that is worth preserving for generations to come. Sixty years old and still in perfect working order.