Quartz watches, the brilliant invention of Bell Labs, Seiko (and the Swiss)

Although the first quartz watch was built at Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1920 by Warren Morrison and J.W. Horton, it was Seiko that used its Quartz Crystal QC-591 model to time trials at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. In 1967, the first two prototypes of quartz wristwatches appeared: the Beta 1, introduced by the Centre Electronique Horloger in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, and the Seiko Astron. They were a major blow to mechanical watches. Today, they coexist.