Fabled Japanese watch brand Takano has stood the test of time, even after stopping production more than 60 years ago.

The Takano timepiece is ticking again, thanks to a famed watchmaker and aficionados who are opening their wallets to pay the high prices to own one. 

Although the Takano only was made for less than five years from 1957, it later gained critical acclaim for its highly advanced manufacturing techniques and challenging spirit.

Now, a company headed by independent watchmaker Hajime Asaoka has signed a licensing agreement to revive the Takano brand.

Its first product unveiled in late May for release in August under the newly revived brand is the Chateau Nouvel Chronometer, a high-precision chronometer that passed a rigorous certification process.

Originally, Nagoya-based Takano Seimitsu Kogyo had been making clocks and other precision instruments.

The company became Japan’s fourth wristwatch maker after K. Hattori & Co. (present-day Seiko Group Corp.), Citizen Watch Co. and Orient Watch Co. when it started manufacturing wristwatches in September 1957 under its own brand.

But its main factory suffered catastrophic damage from the 1959 Isewan Typhoon. Struggling to recover from a management crisis that followed, the company came under the umbrella of Ricoh Co. in April 1962 and ended its watchmaking brand.

RESPECT FOR TAKANO

Born in 1965, Asaoka graduated from the Tokyo University of the Arts to work as a product designer.

But he learned watchmaking on his own and made Japan's first wristwatch equipped with a tourbillon, a complex mechanism designed to increase the accuracy, in 2009.

Hailed as one of the nation's representative watchmakers, Asaoka is also one of the very few in the world who can handle the entire watchmaking process.

He has his own luxury watch brand bearing his namesake, Hajime Asaoka, and is in charge of design for the vintage-inspired Kurono Tokyo brand, receiving a flood of orders from prospective buyers each time a new piece is released from the two brands.

Asaoka said he particularly took note of the fact that Takano released the Takano Chateau, which was the world’s thinnest wristwatch with a center second layout at the time, in 1960, and that the brand had introduced excellent shock-resistant features. 

“As a watch enthusiast, I always had respect for Takano,” he said. “And while I was going through past documents and other materials, I learned that the brand was aspiring to make world-class luxury watches and felt that it was heading in the same direction as my goal.”

Asaoka negotiated with Ricoh Elemex Corp., which holds the Takano trademark, to sign a licensing agreement and decided to breathe new life into the brand.

He pondered what Takano would have done if the brand had continued to exist. He realized that it would have aimed at meeting chronometer standards, which require stringent testing to guarantee that watches maintain a certain level of accuracy under various conditions, including changes in posture.

VIPER’S HEAD MARK

Asaoka and his team asked the Besancon Astronomical Observatory in France to conduct the testing.

There are also facilities in Switzerland and Germany that conduct chronometer testing, but the French observatory is the only institution that accepts timepieces produced outside France.

According to Asaoka, testing at Besancon is more stringent than other facilities because it requires the movement to be cased, nudging it closer to its final form.

The Chateau Nouvel Chronometer has a see-through back cover, which also makes it easy to identify the serial number of the movement inside the watch.

The movement of a watch that passed the chronometer test at the Besancon observatory is allowed to bear the mark of the viper’s head.

When Takano’s latest timepiece is seen from the back, the mark is found etched on the movement's rotor.

The revived Takano brand intends to release one or two new models a year.

About 100 units of the Chateau Nouvel Chronometer are expected to be produced a year, with each selling for 880,000 yen ($5,600).

The first batch will be sold in or around mid-August.

The brand is also considering offering the timepiece via lottery and accepts inquiries through its official website at (https://takanowatch.jp/).