Ricoh’s Automatic Watch Movements

Ricoh? Sure, they produce copiers, printers and cameras, but mechanical movements and watches? In fact, Ricoh was the number four Japanese manufacturer of self-developed mechanical watch movements, after Seiko, Citizen and Orient.

Before we start with the watch movements, let’s have a little excursion into the history of Ricoh: it begins in 1936 with the founding of Riken Kankoshi Co. Ltd. As early as 1938 it became the Riken Optical Co. Ltd., which manufactured optical devices, including cameras. In 1963, it became Ricoh Co. Ltd., which is still active as a multinational corporation.

The origins of the watch division of Ricoh, however, come from another Japanese company, the Takano Seimitsu Kogyo Co., which was founded in 1938.

About Takano and their movements, I have already reported here in detail: Takano, the Phantom Japanese Watch Manufacturer

On May 8, 1962, the president of Riken Optical Co. Ltd. took office as president of Takano. In August 1962, Takano Seimitsu Kogyo Co. became Ricoh Tokei Co. Ltd., which, being renamed again to Ricoh Elemex Corporation in 1986, still exists today.

Now, this is about the automatic watch movements of Ricoh. A short time ago, I still thought that there are only two variants, the Ricoh 61 for men’s watches and the 251 for ladies’ watches.

The reality, however, is much more complex. There were not only different types of these two movements, which also have different caliber numbers, but also quite different families of movements.

The decisive clues to the Ricoh watch movement families and their variants were provided by the 2019 published book 森年樹: 国産腕時計タカノ・リコー (Domestic Watches: Takano・Ricoh), トンボ出版 (Dragonfly Publishing), Year: 2019, ISBN 9784887161191. Unfortunately, this book is only available in Japanese!

Here we will focus on the automatic movements of Ricoh, so let the hand-wound ones aside. I was able to identify the following automatic movement families from Ricoh:

• Series 54
• Series 1200
• Series 2000
• Series 30
• Series 25
• Series 29

The Ricoh 54 Series

The first automatic movements from Ricoh use the Takano caliber 544, which was supplemented in 1962 with an automatic module. The family includes three variants, which have the following features in common:

• Size: 12 3/4´´´ (French lignes, 1 ligne = 2.26 mm)
• Beat rate: 18.000 bph (beats per hour)
• Hour, minute, sweep second
• Rotor with ball bearings
  

Here we have a 54710 in a Ricoh Dynamic Auto:

These movements are, to my knowledge, not labeled with the caliber number, but they can easily be compared to other Ricoh movements by the shape of the balance cock, the position of the balance in relation to the winding stem, the functions (day yes/no) and the number of jewels ( 33/45).

The Ricoh 1200 series

This family of works does not seem to have a Takano base, so it was probably created under the aegis of Ricoh. This family also includes three variants which have the following features in common:

• Size: 11 1/2´´´ (French lignes)
• Beat rate: 18.000 bph (beats per hour)
• Hour, minute, sweep second
• Rotor without ball bearings

Here a caliber 1218 in a Ricoh Auto Deluxe:

These movements are easily recognized by the balance bridge (two attachment points) instead of a balance cock (a point of attachment). Together with the functions (date/day), these calibers can be distinguished, since these movements are not marked with the caliber number.

The Ricoh 2000 series

Again, a new family of movements, of which there are (originally) only two versions that have the following features in common:

• Size: 12 3/4´´´ (French lignes)
• Beat rate: 18.000 bph (beats per hour)
• Hour, minute, sweep second
• Rotor without ball bearings, but with a ruby bearing

However, a reader of this article sent me pictures of a Ricoh movement that clearly belongs to the 2000 family and has a date display and a 24-hour display! Unfortunately, the caliber designation is not known.

 

These movements were used in watches named Ricoh Punch and Ricoh Auto Just. They seem to be quite rare though.

Based on the rounded shape of the balance cock and the function (date / day), these movements are very easy to identify.

The Ricoh 30 series

THE automatic family of Ricoh, as movements from this family are most often found in Ricoh watches. Unfortunately, this family has many members, which are visually hardly distinguishable from each other.

But let’s first look at the similarities of these movements:

• Size: 12 3/4´´´ (French lignes)
• Beat rate: 18.000 bph (beats per hour)
• Hour, minute, sweep second
• Rotor with ball bearings

Initially, all the movements of the 30 series were equipped with a Monorex shock protection. Around 1970, this was replaced by the Monorex New.

Here are the two different variants of the rotor:

Unfortunately, the unambiguous identification of these many variants is not always easy, since the movements are never labeled with the caliber number. The assignment with the table above is not always unique, so there are probably more details to consider, that I could not identify yet. Such a further feature could be the winding wheels of the automatic module, which (presumably) have holes in older movements, but none in newer variants:

The good news is that the movements can very often be identified by the reference number on the caseback of the watch. This usually begins with the caliber number, occasionally it has a leading zero, so e. g. 61xxx or 061xxx:

The caliber 61 is by far the most common variant of this family. It can be found in the Ricoh World Timer shown at the very top and in this watch which dates around 1970:

In the picture above you can see a push button at 2 o’clock, which serves to quickly adjust the date. For the day display, there is no quickset mechanism, so here the hands must be rotated clockwise until the correct day is displayed.

In the 1970s, Ricoh movements were also used in watches of the brand RonTic of the German silverware manufacturer Robbe & Berking. They were equipped with the caliber 67. I suspect that Ricoh produced the whole watch and did not only provide the movement.

This watch also has a push button at 2 o’clock for quick adjustment of the date. Here the button lies so deep that he is not visible in the picture.

The Ricoh 67 has 30 jewels, of which nine are used as ball bearings of the rotor.

And another German manufacturer, Dugena, has used Ricoh movements as well:

The Dugena 5400 is a Ricoh 41. The bottom of the dial of this watch is labeled with R41.

In this movement, the quickset of the date is done by repeatedly pulling the crown, thus the caliber 41 does not need an extra push button for that.

Here you can see the difference between the two variants of the quickset mechanisms. The red arrow marks the position where the pusher attaches:

And finally a Ricoh 48, which only has a date display but no day display. This movement does not have a date quickset, but the date can be adjusted semi-quickly by repeatedly turning the hands back to 9 p.m. and then turning them forward to midnight.

By the way, there are also at least two members of the 30 series family with manual instead of automatic winding: the Ricoh 53 with date and day and the Ricoh 55 with date display only.

Now we have dealt with the automatic movements for men’s watches. But there are also two families of movements for ladies’ watches:

The Ricoh series 25

Movements for ladies’ watches that have the following features in common:

• Size: 7 3/4´´´ (French lignes)
• Beat rate: 21.600 bph (beats per hour)
• Hour, minute, sweep second
• Rotor without ball bearings

Except for the number of jewels, these variants are technically identical. Without automatic module, the same movement base does also exist as manual winding calibers: the caliber 252 with date and the 253 without date.

At least the movement with 22 jewels is also available with a different rotor shape:

The caliber number is not found anywhere on these movements, but as the beginning of the reference number on the caseback of the movement. In contrast to Ricoh’s series 30 family, the few variants of the series 25 can be easily distinguished.

The Ricoh series 29

Movements for ladies’ watches that were not developed by Ricoh but sourced from third-party manufacturers. Interestingly, Ricoh also used movements from Switzerland. It is striking that these ladies’ watches have both a date and day display. Ricoh did not have a self-developed ladies’ watch movement with both displays.

There may be more 29x movements belonging to this family.

Wie bei den Serien 30 und 25 findet sich auch hier die Ricoh-Kalibernummer meist nur als Beginn der Referenznummer auf dem Bodendeckel der Uhr:

As with the series 30 and 25, the Ricoh caliber number is usually only found as the beginning of the reference number on the caseback of the watch:

Back to the starting point of this article, which started with the assumption that there are only two different automatic movements from Ricoh, the caliber 61 for men’s watches and the 251 for ladies’ watches. Now we have identified six movement families with a total of 38 variants. Admittedly, the variants of the 30 series family, to which the caliber 61 belongs, often differ only in trifles.

But I suspect that there are more variants of the Ricoh movements in the 30 and 29 series!