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Hm, that’s nicer than it looks in the product shots isn’t it.

People seem to prefer the old layout with Seiko at 12 but I’m team rebrand.

I think they’re great, those, and the bracelet does feel really nice. I’m glad they’ve updated it and are offering it officially in the west now. PSA though, they've made some very small changes to the case on the new SBGW301 and SBGW305 to make the end link fit a little better (plus a change to the crystal for maintenance / disassembly reasons - dunno if that means no more glue bubbles).

The blued second hand is a very nice touch on those IMO. Properly heat blued by hand, by one bloke, one at a time.

Then you’d be the same as every other bloke with a sports Rolex. Perpetual calendars sort the real nerds from the good-looking well-adjusted normal people.

It might be ugly on the outside but the movement is the opposite of antiporn IMO. One of Ludwig Oechslin’s most well known complicated movement designs. A GMT perpetual calendar with a +/- GMT offset function. It’s really brilliant.

There’s one in a white gold case for under £10k on C24 which is a bargain, frankly.

https://www.watchprosite.com/ulysse-nardin/tales-from-the-crypt-in-depth-review-of-the-ulysse-nardin-gmt-perpetual/13.1197111.9684106/

Yeah that’s all very true.

They’re going to have a problem with Credor at some point. In the west they’re trying to make it the brand above Grand Seiko - basically, like GS but with hand finished movements and porcelain dials. The Japanese Vacheron. In Japan it’s more of a jewellery / dress watch brand that stretches from quartz watches well below GS price points up to the (admittedly mega) Eichi stuff and beyond (tourbillons, enamel, gemstones etc). It’s a very different sell.

Was very odd going into BIC Camera and seeing £5000 Grand Seiko's lobbed in a glass cabinet next to suitcases and workout gear though. Kinda killed the whole ethos for me.

This I think is why a lot of Japanese collectors think westerners are idiots for valuing Grand Seiko over Swiss brands. The grass is always greener etc. Even if objectively a Grand Seiko is a much better watch than a Swiss watch at the same price (which it is 90% of the time).

(Objectively being a key word there.)

To be fair the seasons 62GS watches and the euro Alpinist are just two cases, when they do hundreds of other LEs and exclusives that stay that way.

Which is another question in itself tbh. My SBGY029 is one of 50. Which is pretty limited right? But on the other hand they have done getting on for a dozen other limited editions of essentially the same watch (the Omiwatari hand wound spring drive model) in different dials / colours for different markets and as different boutique exclusives. You could be a collector just of those if you wanted to.

People moaned that Omega used to love releasing special editions all the time - they had nothing on Seiko / GS. And if anything Seiko are increasing. They’ve released so many watches this year, it’s nuts.

That is generally Seiko’s modus operandi. They make SO many variants and just see what sticks, and then do more of that. The 62GS-cased four seasons watches were originally US exclusives, but they were so popular they now sell them globally. They don’t care if you bought one thinking it would be an exclusive.

There was a similar situation with a limited edition Alpinist that was for the UK market but the following year they released it in Japan with a different strap. The UK division of Seiko were so embarrassed that they offered customers their money back if they wanted to return the watch.

Re: the Presage thing, I think it is more Presage imitating GS with the OTT dials.

There are several much better green-dialled GSs, just none that are a bright green like that.

https://www.grand-seiko.com/uk-en/collections/slgh011g

https://www.grand-seiko.com/uk-en/collections/sbgw303g

https://www.grand-seiko.com/uk-en/collections/sbgh271g

It’s still fundamentally Seiko (and with a regular Seiko showroom upstairs), they have zero attitude, unlike a lot of the watch retailers on the same street. Just pop in, it’s much better than their old place.

Looks nice, grats! I’m not a see-through caseback fetishist but I think it is slightly a shame you can’t see the movements on those.

I didn’t design the Polpo book, it was done by a couple of friends that I was at art college with.

I did do some work for Russell Norman a few years later when I was freelancing at the digital agency that made all his websites (they also did Ollie Dabbous’). I drew the logotype for his short-lived non-kosher Jewish deli called Mishkins.

Very warm bloke, with a real eye for detail. He always knew exactly what he wanted.

The old GS boutique in Knightsbridge was terrible for that, a black hole at the back of the place. They would actually apologise and encourage you to go to the window at the front to get a better look.

Their new one in New Bond Street is a lot better.

Very true. They all still seem very committed to spotlighting.

For me all four of the seasons / “sekki” watches in the same case are a lot nicer.

But with all of them I think they could do with being 1-2mm smaller and on a strap rather than that bracelet.

Checked this out the other day. Looks exactly like you’d expect. The bright colour and the green lacquered seconds hand did make it look a little cheap IMO. Still think the lilac one (which they didn’t have in) might be a banger.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=KcKSeucub1w

Is Kataba on Endell Street known to folks ITT?

Wasn’t aware of it but passed by yesterday and popped in. Lots of nice stuff.

There’s a chronograph in the same case.

E.g.: https://www.watchfinder.co.uk/Blancpain/Leman/2185-1127-11/36706/item/271755

If you’re talking niche, I’ve been keeping my eye on the late 90s / early 00s Blancpain Leman Timezone, specifically the white dial.

https://chrono24.app/blancpain/blancpain-time-zone-leman--id26824047.htm

38mm, really high quality movement etc. There is a white gold version and I think there is a bracelet that was an option on the steel version.

Oh yeah then the Microfreak is perfect. It has a bunch of the open source Mutable Instruments sound generators in.

They’re good little synths but I would say it has its niche, it’s not a do it all or “conventional” kind of synth. The touch pad keyboard is unusual, it works in an interesting way but it’s not exactly what you’d expect from a typical synth.

I think if the intended recipient is interested in experimenting and creating unusual sounds (especially digitally synthesised sounds) it’s a great choice. If the aim was to be able to cover a load of classic analogue/subtractive sounds and/or learn the basics of synthesis there might be better choices (eg the Korg Minilogue is very popular as a more conventional analogue synth).

My guess is they’ve bought it to make heritage reissues. Georges Kern will probably do a pretty good job of it. And they’ll be expensive.

Vintage UG haven’t really taken off at auction in the way they were predicted to by a lot of people. Wouldn’t be surprised to see a strategy of Breitling privately acquiring some nice examples and then coordinating a big headline sale with Phillips to generate some hype in the brand to coincide with the relaunch.

There’s a white dial variant that I think is my favourite of the three but it’s Japanese market only.

You know what I like? The GMT hand that’s based on the 1968 / Marinemaster diver second hand, instead of the Rolex GMT arrow hand that everyone imitates.

I suspect the lilac one might be a real banger.

I still haven't brought myself to tot it up entirely… The Partspicker cost is way off of course, for a start the 4070FE was £569 from Nvidia, not £977 (but even that hurt given that I was originally budgeting for a 4060 Ti)

Edit: about £1600 for the PC itself. I would expect that you can get a faster prebuilt for that money but maybe with worse PSU, RAM, etc and a case that’s a lot bigger / uglier.