Originally Posted by
MartinCRC
In 1971, a Seiko 6139-6032, a variant of the classic Pogue, would have cost you 18,000 Yen; a Bell-Matic 17,500 Yen; a 6159 300m diver's watch, more than double that at 38,000 Yen. King Seikos ranged from about 20,000 to 32,000 Yen and Grand Seikos from 32,000 to 53,000 Yen. Bog standard Lord Matics were mid teens and the mid to low end Actus models mid teens down to about 9000 Yen.
The Seiko EL-370 Electronic watch series sat between 18000 and 20000 Yen so pretty much on a par with the Citizen Cosmotron of the time. Whatever the price point of any of these models, they would have been offering super value for money compared to the Swiss alternatives and so I reckon a price that is the equivalent of £250 to £350 for a '71 Cosmotron seems about right to me. We must also remember, that the electronic watch development at that time was a blind alley: the real innovation and the future of the watch industry was quartz. I have copies of catalogues from 1974 and later where quartz models first make an appearance and the prices range from mid 40,000 Yen mark all the way up to about 1,000,000 Yen!!! The mechanical stuff in those catalogues is still pitched across the same price brackets as in the 1971 catalogues with the Elnix electronic watches sitting between low 20000 and low 30,000 Yen range.
Martin