What time is it? Watches and horology

@c.h.e. Possibly because it isn’t a model they’ve been improving generation after generation, it was only a trustful recreation of a model from the last..?

Seiko kind of disowned the 62MAS quite soon after it was discontinued in the late 1960s. It was their first divers watch, commissioned by the Japanese government for the arctic research expeditions, and it was designed very quickly, while they were also designing dozens of stopwatches for the Tokyo olympics. Because they didn’t really have any direct experience of what a divers watch needed to be, and no time to do R&D, they essentially copied from popular Swiss skin divers of the time - specifically the Aquastar case design, and the dial and hands from a Blancpain Bathyscaphe. (Though it is, IMHO, better looking than either.) Pic below is a slide from a talk about the 62MAS I did at the last Time 4 A Pint meet.

Once they had time to go back and create an original design, they started from scratch with the 6215 and 6159 and defined the design codes for divers watches that they still use now.

So the Seiko lineage, and the gradual evolution, comes from there, along with the 6105 (which evolved into the Turtle line and the SKXs) and the Tuna; not from the 62MAS. They didn’t make a recreation or evolution of the 62MAS design until 2017.

I guess high end Grand Seiko dive watch feels as luxurious as Rolexes ? Maybe not in terms of image but at least speaking of product quality..

GS divers are better finished than a Rolex Sub, no doubt. The watch head, at least. They are still miles off with the bracelets.

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