A couple of years after the presentation of the Laurel Alpinist, the first sports oriented watch made by Seiko, the japanese manufacturer had to fill a important vacuum in their ranges : a diver’s watch. While the first swiss manufacturers to propose a diver’s watch chose to develope a case with an outer rotating bezel […]
The Universal Genève White Shadow is part of the brand’s “Shadow” line, which also included the Gilt Shadow (gold-plated) and the Golden Shadow (solid gold). This collection was a pinnacle of dress watch design and technical achievement during the 1960s and 70s. Presentation The sleek, elegant appearance of the White Shadow was the work of […]
If the Longines Conquest was initially designed to be a sporty waterresistant watch, it drifted in the 80s to something more sophisticated to follow the general trend of this period allowed by much smaller and thinner quartz movements. The materials used were as well more refined, with titanium, gold, sapphire crystals. This new generation of […]
Among the Seamaster family, the Cosmic is the personification of the design and culture change that occured in the second half of the 60s. First of all, its name, Cosmic, reminds surely the period that we now call the “space age” and during which the space race reached its climax. Then, where the straight Seamaster […]
The Seiko SilverWave range is a quite wide range of “waterproof” watches, introduced in ca 1964 with the Sportsmatic and Seikomatic Silverwave (discontinued in 1965). Ten years later, Seiko relaunched the Silverwave, based on the 6306 calibre and the 5 Actus range. That new SilverWave was available in only two different cases (8000 & 8010), […]
In the late nineties, Seiko only offered a short assortment of mechanical watches. Apart of the Seiko 5 range based on the 7S26 movement, the catalogue contained only a few models based on the 6810 and the 4Sxx calibres, amid them the sought after Alpinist 4S15, some dress watches fitted with the 4S24/4S25 calibre and […]
In the late 50’s, Seiko introduced its first sports watch : the Alpinist. While most of the swiss manufacturers already had a sports/outdoors range (Omega Seamaster, Longines Conquest, etc.), Seiko was quite late in this segment when it launchend the Laurel Alpinist. This Laurel is very scarce today, and I think, not very well known. […]
In 1967, Seiko introduced its first 36,000 bph movement, the 5740C. It was the second in the world to reach that beat, after a calibre made by Girard-Perregaux. To house that new movement, Seiko used the Lord Marvel range, which had been launched a couple of years before and modernised its design. The Lord Marvel […]
In 1963, Seiko introduced the 2nd generation of King Seiko, based on the Daini 44 movement. Only a couple of models were available, the 44-2000 (gold plated) / 44-9990 (stainless steel) and the 4402-8000 (with the date). In this article, we will focus on the gold plated 1964 King Seiko 44-2000, reference KSK 010. Presentation […]
Post amended May, 31st 2025 : I extended the description to all 56xx-7000 models. In 1968, Seiko introduced its first automatic King range, based on the 56xx 28,800 bph movement. In the JDM Seiko catalog n°2 from 1968 the only available 56KS model was the ref. 7000 case associated with the ref. 7000 dial, with […]