Okaya City Nagano watch

I've blogged all sorts of commemorative/ promotional watches on my blog so far, but I think this is the first which is for a city!

This watch is made for a place called Okaya City, which is a small city in the Nagano Prefecture (county) in Japan on the banks of Lake Suwa. The city was founded in 1936 is in the centre of the prefecture and has a population of just over 50,000. After WWII, the city established itself as a place for high precision manufacture, and is now home to Seiko Epson and Olympus.

The watch is a standard round case analogue watch with a 3 hand dial design. The face features a picture of a colourfully dressed person holding drumsticks with the Okaya City name on their drum. In the background, the picture has what looks like bells, trees, and maybe a city landmark.

The back has the city name engraved into it, as well as the usual watch information (water resistant, stainless steel and base metal).

The watch is made by Seiko (which is appropriate as they have a base there), and is based around the V701 quartz module (which inside is revealed to be a Shiojiri V70C). It was manufactured in a year ending in a 5, so could be 1985 for the 50th anniversary of the city in 1986, or 2005 for the 40th anniversary of the twinning with Mount Pleasant, Michigan, US, or something completely different. My guess for the watch style is that it's an 80s watch, but possibly 90s.