Tampoco sé qué decir. El primer Astron, prototipo, fué presentado dos años antes de venderse, más o menos a la vez del Beta 1, al concurso de cronometría del observatorio de Neuchatel.
https://www.watchtime.com/featured/1969-seikos-breakout-year/
Both Seiko and Switzerland competed to develop the first quartz watch. For Seiko, the race began in 1959 with Project 59A, whose mission was to develop quartz crystal timers. One of the team’s first successes was a portable quartz clock called the Seiko Crystal Chronometer QC-951, which Seiko used as a backup timer for marathon events in the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Summer Games.
The big challenge was to make a mechanism small enough for use not in a clock but a wristwatch. Both Seiko and a consortium of Switzerland’s top firms tackled it. They were able to monitor each other’s progress through timing competitions sponsored by Switzerland’s Neuchâtel Observatory, where prototype watches were submitted for testing. The Swiss developed the first quartz marine chronometer in 1961. Seiko had one by 1963.
Seiko quickly caught up. Seiko and Longines were the big winners in the Observatory’s 1964 competition, both with prototype quartz board chronometers. Longines took the Grand Prix and Seiko took the next six prizes. The same results occurred in 1966 for prototypes of the world’s first quartz pocketwatch. At both competitions, more than half the winning products were from Seiko.
In 1967, Seiko nabbed the Grand Prix for a quartz pocketwatch.
That year quartz wristwatches were entered into the Neuchâtel competitions for the first time. The Swiss consortium entered its movement, known as Beta 1, and Seiko entered the Astron movement. Both groups raced to perfect the movements for commercial production and sale.