1968 Seiko Bellmatic

An automatic stainless steel Seiko Bellmatic gunmetal metallic dial watch. Hot on the heels of both the Vulcain Cricket and the Jaeger LeCoultre Memovox, the Japanese watch maker, Seiko, launched their wrist alarm watch, the Bell-Matic in 1966. Including an alarm mechanism inside a mechanical wrist watch proved very difficult to accomplish, early on during the development of the wrist alarm. Creating the sound was not so much of an issue. The disruption this would cause on the mechanism and accurate time keeping, on the other hand, was problematic. The ‘bell’ in the Bell-Matic is actually a curved metal sounding spring that is repeatedly struck by a small hammer powered by a spring unwinding. That spring is released by a lever moved by a wheel sitting on top of the hour wheel on the dial side. As with the Vulcain, the Jaeger-LeCoultre and the Tudor, the Seiko utilizes two separate barrels for storing power. This ensures that the power required to ring the bell does not detract from