What time is it? Watches and horology

My brand new Tudor is going to be replaced with a brand new Tudor. Hopefully, the new one will be problem free. I am not sure when I will actually get it due to the further restrictions. Maybe I'll convince them to post it... hopefully

I quite enjoy the shallow feeling
of presence thatt a more hefty watch invokes :-)

This was today's choice.

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Not anti big watches! Especially divers. That particular watch just didn’t work for me when I tried one on. I love the original 44GS watches at about 38mm and 10.5mm thick (including tall box crystal), the new ones at 40 x 14 are a very different thing. Stunning objects, but they don’t wear as well as some of the other, more modest GSs (eg the SBGA205).

Having said that... the time and date spring drive one with the midnight blue dial (SBGA375) is a real sleeper hit, and thinner at 12.5mm. On a casual strap I reckon it could be knockout.

There is a bewildering variety. I think I’d like spring drive, I’d like an exciting dial, I’d like it on a leather strap and not a sports watch, and of course with the gmt complication.

I think the SBGE227 is the only current GMT that’s on leather and is spring drive.

It doesn’t help that all their model names are the same. I constantly have to google to check what’s what.

Nothing to stop you buying one that comes on a bracelet and putting it on leather. Most of the case shapes they’re using were originally designed for straps, not bracelets.

My very personal opinion is that GSs often don’t need the crazy dials (as amazing as they are) because the dial furniture on its own is mindblowing. One of my favourite GS is the basic SBGA285 with a matte black dial and I love the way the markers and hands leap off it. Some of the more reflective dials go bananas in the light with the polished markers reflecting off the underside of the crystal and back off the dial again.

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I also think the aforementioned SBGJ201 is a bit of a statement piece but on a strap it definitely rocks it if that’s what you’re going for (and you’re ok with the size). OEM leather, I’m pretty sure.

It’s hi-beat rather than spring drive but has the lovely “Mt Iwate” dial finish (ridged radially and lacquered).

Article here: https://www.fratellowatches.com/grand-seiko-sbgj201-review/

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For me

Grand Seiko needs a fucking kickass Dail.

Dress up night. Feels a lot more quality compared to the daily. That second ticks so smoothly, lovely to watch after a couple of wines

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Yes, still enjoying it. I tried the SBJG203 back then and was rather taken by the case shape, but really I wanted a spring drive. It might have been a bit too much anyway.

Also tried the SBGE255 and 257 (blue and green ones). Size was okay but the 4:30 date and big bezel (fixed) didn’t sit right. I also find the spring drive movement fascinating to look at looking at, and they have a closed caseback.

These names or lack thereof are annoying aren’t they.

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That is really lovely .

such nice watches and i want to love them, just cant get over the Grand Seiko font. Looks so steampunk/suburban chinese takeaway to me

My favourite description of it from someone on here was Its a bit reichy.

Yeah, think I mentioned that before, a friend said to me “it looks a bit Reich-y”. It’s made me think of White Castle a few times.

I’ll write an essay of a reply one of these days about the Grand Seiko blackletter type, because I’m a nerd. It’s a thing in Japan and it is very much to do with the German influence from WW2. As is the “zaratsu” polishing (a transliteration of Salatz, I think, which was the German maker of the zinc disc polishing machines they acquired and started using on watch cases).

Basically, I reckon they were simply trying to make it look European and imply history or heritage with it. They were obsessed with beating the Swiss at the watchmaking game. Blackletter was the dominant lettering style in Germanic languages for hundreds of years.

Guess that turned into an essay.

At least it’s not Arial.

The fact that they always use some Akzidenz Grotesk variant and not Arial for the “AUTOMATIC” and “GMT” pleases me greatly.

🤣 🤣 🤣

It’s a thing in Japan and it is very much to do with the German influence from WW2.

Is it really very much to do with the WW2 period? Would have thought it would be a Meiji thing imported by Prussians. Didn't get the impression the Axis powers did much cultural exchange TBH; by that point the Japanese had little need for much from Germany, except possibly an inline liquid cooled super-charged aviation engine.

The influence would have begun in the Meiji period, absolutely, I'd love to understand how and when it seeped into the Japanese graphic / visual vernacular though. I always assumed it would have been in the 20th century (or late 19th maybe) and that the latin alphabet would have been barely visible in Japan much before that. I'm guessing there was a visual element to the various cultural programmes that were conducted to warm Japan up to the idea of collaborating with Germany post-WW1, I ought to actually get off my arse and research this.

I saw a bar in Tokyo that used katakana for its logo but written with blackletter pen strokes… pretty wild as typography goes.

Grand Seiko GMT... SBGN003 gets my vote or the SBGM221G although the autos can be thick.
This is one of the nicest Grand Seiko for me. I don’t know the reference but just look at this...

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Yes, I think that's lovely. A GMT version would be spiffing.

Not a fan of the hands on any GS I’ve seen. Don’t really know why...

That is great. Could never be that way and GMT. I want to know the ref. now.

That’s the SBGW231, with a strap swap. It’s a bit of an outlier for Grand Seiko in that it’s manual wind, no date, 37mm in diameter and a sensible thickness (11.6mm).

There are auto (with date) and GMT variants, kind of. They’re larger, as you might expect. Look at the SBGJ217 (hi-beat) and SBGM221 (auto, also weird stumpy GMT hand). Both 39.5mm and around 14mm thick.

That’s the one. It’s just pure class.