Every now and again I get a powerful dose of I-Want-Itis. This is when you just HAVE to have something. Previous doses of I-want-itis have lead to some interesting purchases including.
- A Rock Extreme laptop
- An Apple titanium PowerBook
- A Nissan Pathfinder 4×4 (R made me buy it)
- A Gibson Les Paul custom
- A BMW 3.2L Z4 (R’s fault again :-))
- an O2 XDA and XDA-IIi
- A Zenith El Primero watch
- A Seiko Kinetic Stingray Divers
There’s just nothing I can do to stop the bug. The lure of a shiny new toy is too great, sob 🙁 Each of these was a great purchase in it’s own right and I don’t regret them for a second. Except the last one hasn’t worked consistently for the past 4 years. I’m getting so fed up with having a really expensive and beautiful watch that just refuses to work despite ridiculous (500 bucks + ) charges every time I get it serviced. Therefore I’m in the market for a new watch. Something that combines the craftsmanship and rugged charm of my Zenith Rainbow with the durability of a G-Shock Casio. I think I may have the answer. Seiko, a company with a fine engineering heritage, have invented a hybrid mechanical-quartz movement called the Spring Drive. What’s that you may ask. Well, it uses an advanced version of the traditional spring powered automatic movement with a quartz-based electronic regulator (driven much like a dynamo on your bike) to electro magnetically controlling the movement of the wheels & levers known as “the escapement”. The result is a watch that performs near the accuracy of quartz with a beautifully crafted and decorated mostly mechanical 30-jewel movement. But enough of the technology. What does it look like? Outside Japan, few realise that Seiko manufacture a range of premium quality, mostly hand-built mechanical chronometers called “Grand Seiko”. The price of these is comparable with low to mid range Rolex and the performance is on a par with the best Swiss watches AT ANY PRICE.. They also manufacture a professional spec (PROSPEX) divers watch called the MarineMaster. I remember seeing the original 300 MarineMaster (MM) a few years ago. It’s very close to the Rolex Submariner in design and in my opinion is of comparable or better quality in every respect. If you don’t believe me, find one on ebay. You won’t be disappointed. So I guess I got a really bad dose of I-Want-Itis when I saw a cross between the Grand Seiko GMT with Spring Drive and the legendarily tough 300 Marine Master in polished titanium alloy. The result is shown below.
Seiko MM Spring Drive 600MI love the classic design with the twist of features such as a sawtooth rotating bezel, the GMT hand & allen-key locks for the strap (look closely). The price is a Rolex-like 2700 euro & it’s only available from Japan or Hong Kong. I’ll try to resist but the smart/dumb money is on me buying one within the next 3 months, DOH!