Monday, March 1, 2021

The KING has returned!

 

In the early 1960s, SEIKO had already been in the clocks and watch business for more than 80 years: a house-hold name and a market leader in Japan, with ambition for global expansion. The secret of Seiko's growth, was in demand: the citizens of the modern, post War world were hungry for modern, accurate and fashionable wrist watches. A mechanical wrist watch was a necessity; a device that ruled the lives of a working man and women. Yet unlike Swiss brands, Seiko was not burdened by fancy horological tradition and an outdated and inefficient, cottage industry business model. Seiko was thinking "big and forward" heavily investing in R&D; perfecting mechanical watches, while embracing quartz technology and building manufacturing plants capable of outputting millions of units.

In Japan, Seiko had no real competition. In order to promote competition and product development within the company, in 1960 Seiko split up their Suwa subsidiary into two separate entities: Suwa Seikosha and Daini Seikosha. Both factories operated separately, with the idea that they would not share knowledge and would therefore try to one-up each other and produce better products. This unorthodox business model worked surprisingly well, and this internal competition propelled Seiko to the cutting edge of design and technology. In 1960, Suwa Seikosha released the first Grand Seiko Chronometer, Seiko’s first high-end dress watch. In response, Daini Seikosha released the first King Seiko in 1963.

The original King Seiko case was designed in the 1960s by young designer Taro Tanaka. Tanaka wanted to outshine the Swiss, figuratively and literally: inspired in part by the art of gem cutting, Tanaka developed a series of rules known as the “Grammar of Design.” "The Grammar of Design boiled down to four basic tenets. First, all surfaces and angles from the case, dial, hands, and indices had to be flat and geometrically perfect to best reflect light. Second, bezels were to be simple two-dimensional faceted curves. Third, no visual distortion was to be tolerated from any angle, and all cases and dials should be mirror-finished. Finally, all cases must be unique, with no more generic round case designs."

A few weeks ago, Seiko released a new King Seiko: a tribute of the original KSK. The key feature: the sharp, bold faceted lugs, with large flat planes and razor sharp angles, Zaratsu polished to a distortion-free mirror finish. A true Taro Tanaka tribute to the “Grammar of Design”. 
SJE083J is 38.1mm in case size, powered by Seiko's 6L35 mechanism. Limited to 3,000 pieces worldwide, it is available through premium Seiko dealers only, each allocated just one watch. Price: $5,200.

Of course, I couldn’t resist but to inspect the watch internally. Immediately, that 6L35 movement looked familiar: it was almost identical to the Soprod M100 mechanism we use in our Mark 1 watch! After some research, it turned out that in 2007 Seiko and Soprod collaborated on the project with the goal to create a mechanism which would compete with the slim line ETA / Omega automatic movement used in Swiss watches.

Neither Seiko nor Soprod have since acknowledged who really designed the movement or who licensed it, but 6L35 is used exclusively in a selected few high end Seiko models since 2017. Small world! 
Final note: if you are interested in SJE083 then please be quick because we only have one watch to sell. The Zaratsu finish is simply stunning, and so is the form of the case making this 140th anniversary Seiko piece a truly special one. 
For more details on this watch, check out our Seiko website: 
https://seiko.clockmaker.com.au/product/king-seiko-sje083j/

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