Shanghai is not a style or a complication but an origin: the place where China's first genuine wristwatches were born. Before 1955, Chinese watch production was mostly importing movements and casing them locally, and that trade clustered in Shanghai. The Shanghai Light Industry Bureau and the Shanghai Watch Industry Association organized 58 enterprises to develop a fully Chinese-made watch. The Shanghai Watch Factory was completed in 1958, China's first, and that same year it produced the A581, the first commercial model, its name signifying the first movement of 1958. Just 13,600 were made in the first year, and when 100 pieces went on sale at the Shanghai Third Department Store on July 1, 1958, they sold out as the doors opened.
Two references define this origin. The A581 is a clean 1950s dress watch with Dauphine hands, a simple dial and the factory-building logo; Premier Zhou Enlai famously bought one for 120 yuan. Today the A581 reissue runs about $267 with a 34.5mm 316L steel case, a hand-wound Shanghai SS7/7120 caliber (17 jewels, 21,600 vph) and a double-domed acrylic crystal. The 7120, redesigned in 1971 for cost and capacity and made in the millions, is among the most recognizable 20th-century Chinese watches. The modern Legacy/Echoes 39mm reimagines it with a cushion-shaped steel case, a self-winding Caliber 2130 (28 jewels, 42-hour reserve) and a sapphire crystal, around $549. At the top sit a 700-piece tourbillon (Sea-Gull ST8230, 41mm) and the Double Tourbillon, evidence of real technical ambition.
When buying, separate two worlds. On the vintage side, original 7120 and A581 cases are cheap, but dial originality, lume and service history are often murky; check the acrylic for crazing and watch for swapped hands. On the modern side, Shanghai uses Seagull movements for simple three-handers while also making some calibers in-house. It suits a buyer drawn to history, comfortable with sub-38mm classic proportions, who wants to touch the root of Chinese watchmaking. The trade-offs: low water resistance, fragile acrylic crystals on vintage pieces, and a thin after-sales network in the West.
Do not read Shanghai-as-origin purely as nostalgia. After declining in the 1980s against foreign brands and quartz, the SHANGHAI label returned to the billion-yuan domestic sales club in 2021. The current range offers 7120 and A581 homages in both 39mm and 31mm sizes alongside showpiece tourbillons. To add a Shanghai to your collection is to hold the birth certificate of the Chinese wristwatch.