Introduced in 1960, Grand Seiko was born with the purpose to be the pinnacle of watchmaking with watches that offer the highest workmanship, robustness and precision. Since its inception, Grand Seiko has always been part of the sub brand of Seiko until 2017 when it was separated as its own division. 2020 marks the 60th anniversary of the creation of Grand Seiko and with that, the company has release 4 new limited editions, 2 automatic mechanical watches and 2 quartz watches.
Let’s introduce the heavy hitter from the group, the Hi-Beat SBGH281, from the press photos, the dial has a nice deep blue with a red seconds hand and red text at 6 displaying the automatic and hi beat. In addition, the watch is housed in the famous 44GS case! Introduced in 1967, the 44GS case has a sharp thin edge finished off with mirror polishing, or “zaratsu” polishing.
The case shape angle makes the side profile appear slimmer and provides an excellent example of Grand Seiko case workmanship. The case has a 40mm diameter with a thickness of 13.3mm and a water resistance of 100 meters. Beating inside is the hi beat 9S85 running at 5Hz or 36,000 beats per hour. It has a power reserve of 55 hours and accuracy of +5/-3 a day. Only 1,500 pieces will be made for the SBGH281 with a MSRP of $6,300. The expected release time is February 2020.
Next up is the ladies Elegance Collection STGK015, this comes with a deep blue mother of pearl dial and the indexes are all filled with diamonds. The bezel of the watch is also filled with diamonds, in this case, 45 of them.
As you can see from the picture, the side case shows brushed and mirror polished edges, in the typical Grand Seiko fashion. Beating inside this lady’s watch is the caliber 9S27 with 50 hours of power reserve and accuracy of +8/-3 a day. The case has a 27.8mm diameter with a thickness of 11.8mm and a water resistance of 100 meters. Only 300 will be made with an MSRP of $9,300 and the expected release time is February 2020.
The next two watches are both powered by quartz movements, but not just any quartz, they are Grand Seiko’s own 9F85 hand assembled and although covered by a caseback, it is finished like a mechanical movement with the typical perlage and groove! The 9F85 is a new movement with a unique hour hand movement so when traveling, you can set the hour hand to the local time zone without changing the minute hand, unless you are traveling to or from India.
The first quartz watch we will introduce is the SBGP007, this watch has a gold star on the dial at 6 and a 2020 imprint motif on the deep blue dial. Looking closely at the dial, you can see the indexes are brushed while the hands have polished bevels with a brushed surface with a contrasting red seconds hand.
Turning over to the caseback, the Grand Seiko medallion is made with 18K gold plate. In addition, the 9F85 in the SBGP007 has an accuracy of +/-5 seconds per year, which is twice as accurate as the current 9F82. The watch has a case diameter of 40mm with 10.8mm thickness and a water resistance of 100 meters. The MSRP is $3,800 and only 2,500 will be released. The expected release time is March 2020.
Last but not least is the SBGP015, this watch is very different from the rest of the line up and in fact, most Grand Seikos with its unique deep blue ceramic bezel! The watch keeps with the theme of deep blue dial with applied indexes that re brushed and filled with lume.
The hour and minute hands are also brushed and filled with lume and a red seconds hand. The 9F85 inside has an accuracy of +/-10 second per year and an independent hour hand movement as previously discussed. The case also has a 40mm diameter with a thickness of 12.4mm and is water resistant up to 200 meters. The watch has a MSRP of $3,900 and 2,000 will be released. The expected release time is April 2020.
Really not loving the pricing strategy here as of late… SBGP015 looking very fresh though
Amazing watches, Looking forward to the future of GS!