Thoughts on an incoming: Grand Seiko SBGX009

[JGJG]

Kazuamata
kakeshi tokei no
kotogotoku
Kuruwanu oto no
kokochi yoki kana.

This Grand Seiko SBGX009 is new to me - but it already feels both comfortable and familiar, for reasons that have little to do with watches.

* * *

Some years ago, I owned a Honda NSX. It’s hard to approach the NSX; nothing makes sense. You see, supercars are brash. Supercars are styled not for speed itself but rather to proclaim that they speed; to hit the gormless hoi polloi over the head with the notion of their speed, even while straddling the paranoid two spaces of a supermarket car park. Even while being winched unto the tow truck. Supercars are stroppy. Conveniently, they can be romanticized into something organic, something living. Because living things are supposed have foibles and shortcomings. Supercars are cack-handed. But the NSX didn't fit easily into this formulation. The motoring press reached lazily for a way to decipher Honda’s car and, coining “the Japanese Ferrari,” left it at that. Here's one of their silly number with my car:

Forget the innovative open-heart surgery that saw more F1 viscera transplanted into a road car in one fell swoop than ever before or since. Forget the watershed of day-to-day driveability and reliability that was unmatchable in any other car at that level of performance. Forget, indeed, that the 328/348 Ferraris were never the benchmark for the NSX design team (seeded with unattributed commentary in early press reports) and that the targets of their early attentions were in fact the F-16 fighter jet and light, manoeuvrable cars of many stripes and lowly displacements. It’s about as accurate to call the NSX “the Japanese Ferrari” as to call Warhol “the American Velázquez.” (Actually, the Velázquez formulation isn’t so bad as all that.)

* * *

The Grand Seiko is immediately familiar, then, for two reasons. First, it is sui generis, so the human mania for compartmentalisation keeps wanting to talk about it in terms of other watches (everything from Patek Philippe to Mr G), missing the point of talking about it as a thing in itself. Second, it's a technological tour de force that over-achieves to an extent whereby its critics must call it "soulless" (because, well, that's what you grab for when there is nothing substantive to criticise).

Instead, let's consider how this watch came to be this watch.

The first Grand Seiko was released in 1960 (caliber 3180, accurate to within +12 / -3 spd with 45hr power reserve). It represented a desire from Seiko to "build a watch that would be as precise, durable, easy to wear and beautiful as humanly possible."

After 28 years of innovation and mastery (the Swiss famously abandoning timekeeping competitions when it became clear that the prize would be destined for Seiko), the first Grand Seiko quartz, the 95GS, came along in 1988. Right from the get-go, the GSQ's offered accuracy of ±10 seconds per year. Nothing was outsourced and nothing was left to chance. Grand Seiko produced every aspect of the watches in house, growing their own quartz crystals from which they selected those with the greatest temperature, humidity and shock resistance.

The following year, 10bar water resistence (another feature inherited in the SBGX009) was introduced in the 8NGS. Then in 1993 the Caliber 9F83 was introduced, with four innovations that would come to define the GSQ: Backlash Auto-Adjust; Twin Pulse Control System; Instant Date Change (not a feature of the three hander, obvs), and the Super Sealed Cabin. With so much technological innovation the quartz movement had reached maturity, and the 9F series concentrated more on case finishing and aesthetics when it was introduced in 1997 (which is, incidentally, the year that my second generation "NA2" NSX rolled off the production line at the Takanezawa R&D Plant, Tochigi - 130 miles east of Seiko's Suwa workshop where every one of its Grand Seiko quartz watches is made).

On the wrist, the watch is very nice, a comfortable 36.5mm case width and 10.4mm height. Full tech specs are:

• Caliber 9F61(Quartz); Hour, minute, second display; accuracy 10 seconds per year; 3yr battery
• Dual Curved Sapphire Glass with nonreflective coating
• Shockproof Structure
• Anti Magnetic
• 10 BAR Water Resistant (non screw crown!)
• Weight 50 grams
• 18mm between the lugs
• Beautiful 16mm "GS" signed tang buckle

Originally fitted with a brown croc strap featuring Seiko's "oil matt finish", I have fitted a chocolate shell cordovan, but the watch also dresses up very nicely on black alligator still complimenting the nine design principles of Grand Seiko:

1: DOUBLE WIDTH INDEX AT 12 O’CLOCK
2: MULTI-FACETED RECTANGULAR MARKERS
3: HIGHLY POLISHED BEZEL
4: HIGHLY POLISHED PLANES AND TWO DIMENSIONAL SURFACE
5: HALF RECESSED CROWN
6: FLAT DIAL
7: MULTI-FACETED HOUR AND MINUTE HANDS
8: CURVED SIDELINE
9: REVERSE SLANTED BEZEL WALL AND CASE SIDE

I get the sense that there is going to be a lot to discover and enjoy about this watch. For instance, the twin-pulse control motor (the GS solution to providing torque to moving a large, broad, "mechanical" type handset with a quartz) is not discernible to the naked eye, but I have already been able to view it with time-lapse iPhone video through a loupe.

Hope you enjoyed reading this and do let me have your thoughts. Oh, and that verse at the start? It's the the Emperor Meiji’s Clock Poem. Clicky.