To grasp simply how a Japanese watch model that populates a number of pages of each Argos catalogue manages to command the respect of the notoriously snobbish watch neighborhood, each Swiss CEO price their salt, and in flip manages to make the SKX007 in query right here for such a ridiculously low value level, we refer you to Seiko’s abiding motto: “One step forward of the remaining.”
Nicely, the model definitely was forward of the sport with the SKX007 diving watch – launched in 1996 – and it appears the remainder of the business continues to be taking part in catch up. It’s maybe the very best worth automated watch available on the market right this moment, and regularly challenges watches ten occasions its value by way of its performance, stylishly easy design and prime construct high quality. If you happen to’re in search of a rugged mechanical watch with actual pedigree which you can put on every single day, this might be all you want.
The product of over three many years of technological interbreeding, the SKX007 could possibly be Seiko’s most spectacular waterbaby of all, due to, slightly than regardless of it being one of many world’s most reasonably priced watches. For £349 (although on any given day, you’ll simply discover a new one for much less, e.g. right here, for instance) you get a bona fide, self-winding mechanical diving watch that greater than meets this horological style’s essentially strict necessities.
In different phrases: 200-metre water resistance; extremely legible dial luminosity; a screw-down crown protected by ‘shoulders’ and offset to 4 o’clock to unlock wrist motion; plus the all-important unidirectional timing bezel, which, should you by accident knock it, solely turns anticlockwise to dictate much less remaining dive time slightly than (probably lethally) extra. And that’s assuming you’re somebody who really spends extended durations of time underwater, in fact.
Seiko 6217 Diver, 1965
It’s as pure a package deal as any self-respecting diver would need, or anybody with a vaguely bodily life-style for that matter, who values robustness and peace of thoughts ought to any water-based exercise or phenomenon confront them. A day on the seaside for instance, or as mad-keen members of the Seiko diving-watch cult will recognize, a jungle monsoon. The reference. 6105, in spite of everything, was significantly well-known for being worn by Captain Benjamin L. Willard – aka Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now.
The Design
The dial itself is pure, practical minimalism, picked out in Seiko’s proprietary, famously torch-bright luminous paint. Some will take subject with the black-on-white day/date indication (pedants like date rings to match their dials, thanks very a lot) however we favor it – it balances-out the lume at 9 o’clock. As for ‘DIVER’S 200m’ in crimson? Nicely, that’s as racy because it will get, including a splash of retro aptitude to in any other case sober proceedings.
If you happen to go for the metal bracelet over the increasing ‘concertina’ rubber strap choice, that’ll add a contact extra classic cool, however it’s a bit clicky-clacky for our liking. Stick to the rubber – it’s the skilled selection and immediately adjustable, or, swap out the band for a NATO watch strap for full on army fashion.
The Construct High quality
It’s the best of watches we’re celebrating right here – simplicity typically being the toughest trick to tug off with wristwatches. The much less that’s happening, the more durable the remaining parts should work, particularly given the lifelong lifespan of a well-made watch. And goodness is the SKX007 well-made.
On-wrist and hands-on, the very first thing you recognize is the sheer heft of the chrome steel case – there’s numerous useful ballast right here, machined and polished with exceptional finesse, from the light curve of its 4 lugs or ‘claws’, to the 2 scalloped shoulders rising to protect both facet of the crown.
The gnurl of the bezel is definitely gripped carrying gloves, however not jagged as to appear aggressive or overly ‘techy’. And while you do twizzle it, a shock: the bezel clicks crisply in half-minute notches, not complete minutes as you’d forgive any mechanical diver below £350. That’s Seiko to an obsessive tee.
The Story Of The Seiko SKX007
It’s a sluggish however regular spirit of innovation that has seen Seiko develop into the titan of watchmaking it’s right this moment – a model boasting huge manufacturing amenities dotted all through Japan’s mountains. Every week-long Bullet Prepare tour is required to understand the sheer extent of those capabilities, and Seiko’s complete self-reliance even stretches to synthesising its personal quartz crystals, rising huge lozenges from ‘seed crystal’ in 14m-high autoclaves – a facility resembling the engine room of the Starship Enterprise.
Elsewhere, nestled within the snowy woods of Morioka within the north, you’ll discover the appropriately named Grand Seiko, the place you’d be forgiven for pondering you’d been wormholed to a Swiss watch atelier within the Jura Mountains. Proper right down to its 20 lab-coated watchmakers studiously tweezering collectively precision mechanical actions to rival any of Omega or Rolex.
Unrivalled quartz pedigree, exquisitely crafted horological masterworks… after which there are the diving watches.
Only one yr after the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, whereas Seiko was shrinking its quartz know-how to wrist dimension, the seed of a mighty subaquatic lineage was sown: the reference 6217. The watch face that launched a thousand rigid-hull inflatable dive boats, should you like. It was Seiko’s first diving watch, and with it the model hit a homerun.
Borrowing loads of stylistic cues from Blancpain’s Fifty Fathoms, whose super-legible luminous monochrome dial and unidirectional rotating bezel set the SCUBA-worthy commonplace way back to 1953, 6217 was waterproof to a extremely respectable 150 metres down, and was naturally pushed by a homegrown Seiko mechanical motion.
The SKX007 is a direct descendant of this traditional debut, albeit through a panoply of variants, evolutions and sub-collections. So good was the 6217, and but so frenzied has its iterative lineage turn out to be, that the SKX007, in manufacturing since 1996, is immediately comprehensible but nearly inconceivable to genetically pinpoint.
The SKX007’s Diving Pedigree
There’s but extra skilled clout to SKX007’s genetic make-up, which took place remarkably early-on in Seiko’s life aquatic. Ten years after the discharge of its first, and after seven years of analysis, Seiko got here up with one other milestone: the world’s first diver’s watch with a titanium case – its super-tough, light-weight steel parts engineered to waterproof tolerances good to depths as much as 600 metres. It was an unprecedented use of the fabric on the time and would mark Seiko out as large gamers within the diving watch world.
Seiko Prospex Tuna Photo voltaic Diver’s
Seiko could also be averse to precise names for its particular person fashions, slightly than strings of letters and numbers, however you’ll be able to depend on their followers to repair this, and all the time with good humour. Therefore, this 1975 skilled diver is now fondly often known as the ‘Tuna’ – so nicknamed for its flat cylindrical case profile, resembling a can of fish.
This hockey-puck form has been adopted throughout a lot of Seiko’s diving vary ever since, together with the cult ‘Orange Monster’ and ‘Black Monster’ Computerized Diver’s 200m launched in 2000. And since 2014 they’ve lastly been obtainable within the UK below the brilliantly revamped Prospex banner – an abbreviation of ‘skilled specs’, which suggests in addition to divers, the vary additionally boasts analogue devices for pilots, drivers and sailors alike.
Seiko Orange Monster Computerized Diver’s
Certainly, displaying their very own good humour, one of many presents within the goodie luggage from Seiko’s current Knightsbridge boutique opening was a cleansing material contained by a tin resembling a tuna can.
From 1975 onwards, Seiko was additionally the primary to place a quartz motion in an expert dive watch, the primary to make use of a troublesome ceramic shroud for deep-sea diving, the primary to make use of a hybrid analog-digital watch with an alarm, and so forth and so forth.
The Motion
Underneath the bonnet of the SKX007, you actually do get a correct Seiko-made self-winding mechanical. The 7S26 is, admittedly, the Japanese model’s most elementary calibre, machined, completed and hand-assembled at Seiko Devices’ Malaysian plant in Johor, close to the border with Singapore.
Nevertheless it’s stable as a rock, very like the remainder of the SKX007. It ticks at a gradual 21,600 vibrations per hour, winds extremely effectively because of Seiko’s ‘Magic Lever’ system (two ‘pawl’ levers both push or pull across the winding barrel’s ratchet wheel, whichever path the rotor swings) and is extremely straightforward and low-cost to service (it even consists of plastic parts for issues just like the day and date switch-over mechanism).
The one downsides to the 7S26 are that it’s non-hand-windable (not a lot an issue because of aforementioned Magic Lever, immediately ticking issues over from a chilly begin) and it’s non-hacking, i.e. the palms don’t cease while you pull out the crown to set the time precisely. However the latter is moot anyway, given the 7S26’s comparatively poor precision.
Are you actually nervous about shedding as much as 20 seconds or gaining as much as 40 seconds a day for this pricepoint? You’ll solely be out by a couple of minutes per week, and you’ll nonetheless depend on the bezel to time your dive should you’re solely submerged for 45 minutes or so.
A Diving Watch Of The Highest Order
Coincidentally, in addition to being SKX007’s delivery yr, 1996 was additionally the yr Geneva’s Worldwide Group for Standardization signed, sealed and delivered its personal verdict on what standards a contemporary diver’s watch ought to adhere to – the ISO 6425 commonplace.
It’s a now infamous measuring stick for the varied takes, errors, misinterpretations and misunderstandings the chattering watch lessons like to speak about, and solely watches stressed within the pursuit of perfection are granted it. Reliability, susceptibility to condensation, 100m minimal water resistance, thermal shock resistance, legibility, a sign issues are working in whole darkness (a luminous sweeping seconds palms, because you ask) – they’re all elements that should be abided by.
ISO 6425 has all of it coated and its stamp of approval is eagerly sought-after. And guess what? Our humble Seiko handed the take a look at. However better of all, for lower than £349 it may be all yours.
