6139 — the world's first automatic chronograph

In one line

An integrated automatic chronograph, column wheel and vertical clutch, in 1969. It won the race to be the first in history by the least glamorous route of all: it was the first one anybody could buy.

First things first: the real Pogue is not the one everybody calls a Pogue

Any yellow-dialled 6139 gets advertised today as a Pogue. The nickname comes from Colonel William Pogue, who took his own up to Skylab 4 without anybody's permission, and it has turned into a sales hook attached to anything yellow.

The trouble is that Pogue's watch was photographed, and photographs can be read. Research by Plus9Time compared the dial of the genuine watch against those of the various references, and the answer is not the one the listings repeat.

To be clear: both are good watches, both are yellow and both carry the blue and red inner ring. If you like the 6139-6002, buy it with a clear conscience. Just be clear about what the premium is buying you.

The rest of the story comes with paperwork. Pogue put the watch on hold on 10 June 1972 and collected it on the 13th; the serial number dates the case to September 1971. The deposit receipt was auctioned with the watch.

1969: who got there first, depending on who you ask

That year produced three claimants to the first automatic chronograph: Seiko on its own, Zenith on its own, and the Heuer-Breitling-Hamilton-Dubois Dépraz consortium. All three are right. It depends what you mean by first.

Zenith announced first. The consortium held its press conference on 3 March. Seiko, meanwhile, had been building movements in series since October of the previous year and put them on sale on 21 May. Each of them claims the medal on a different definition of the word first.

Seiko's real advantage had nothing to do with the calendar. It was the vertical clutch, which almost nobody fitted in 1969 and which every good automatic chronograph uses today. Rolex put one in the Daytona thirty-one years later.

Where it comes from

Suwa Seikosha began work on it in 1967. The prototype was finished in August 1968, the drawings and samples in September, and series production of movements and parts started in October. By January 1969, when Zenith announced a completed prototype, Suwa was already building watches to ship.

Suwa's internal bulletin set the date: 21 May 1969, in Japanese shops. First out were the references 6139-6000 and 6139-6010, at between 16,000 and 18,000 yen.

What sat inside deserved more credit than the date. This was not an automatic with a chronograph module bolted on top, but a chronograph designed as a chronograph from the mainplate up, with a column wheel to control it, a vertical clutch to engage it and Seiko's Magic Lever to wind it in both directions of rotor travel. It stayed in production until the late 1970s.

Three things almost nobody knows

• It has no running seconds hand Look at a 6139 dial: a 30-minute sub-dial, day and date, and nothing turning anywhere. The central hand belongs to the chronograph, and it sits still until you use it. To find out whether the watch is alive you have to press the pusher. It throws every first-time buyer, and there is nothing wrong with it.
• You cannot wind it, and Seiko put that in writing The 6139A technical guide sums the system up in two words: "Automatic winding". The 6138A guide, from the same workshop a year later, says "Automatic winding (with auxiliary hand winding)". Same desk, same period, one phrase different. If your 6139 has stopped, do not turn the crown — shake it for thirty seconds and it will start.
• Pogue flew with two watches, one on each wrist NASA's official Omega went on the right. The Seiko he had bought himself, which was not authorised, went into a leg pocket of his suit during launch preparations and onto his left wrist once in orbit, set to US central time. He auctioned it in 2008 for a little under 6,000 dollars, with the whole sum going to the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation.

Technical data

What a watchmaker checks before buying one

Everything hangs on the chronograph centre wheel. It is the known weak point of these movements and it gets harder to find every year. Press the reset pusher several times over: the hand has to land exactly on zero, every time, neither a hair short nor a hair past.

If the hand comes off its post on reset, the tube is worn and no longer grips — the reset on these calibres is violent. If the return feels stiff or falls short, the usual culprits are a bent hammer spring or a dry hammer. Neither is a disaster, but both cost hours at the bench.

And do not mistake factory behaviour for faults. The seconds do not stop when you pull the crown, and the crown does not wind. That is how it left Suwa. What you should insist on is that it starts from movement alone and keeps running.

Watches that used it

• 6139-6000 and 6139-6010 — the first, May 1969, 16,000 to 18,000 yen
• 6139-6002 — the yellow dial that almost every listing calls a "Pogue"
• 6139-6005 — the reference William Pogue actually took to Skylab 4
• Dial-signed Seiko 5 Sports Speed-Timer

Its brother with an hour counter, a year younger and a millimetre thicker, has a page of its own: the calibre 6138.