Category Archives for Diver

My rare purchase of a new modern Seiko, the Marinimaster SBDX014.  Picked this up during a trip to Osaka, it's an awesome piece of work that once I put it on and can't let go.

A tribute to the first tuna watch released in 1975, the SBDX014 was launched in 2015 for this reason.  It has a monobloc titanium inner casing with a ceramic shroud as the outer casing, to protect the case from shocks.  Although it is officially rated to be 1000m under water, it has in fact been tested to sustain 3000m deep down, with it mounted externally to a remotely operated undersea research vehicle.

The movement inside is the 8L35, which is an automatic and beats at 28800vph, have seconds hacking and manual winding as well.  It has about 50 hours of power reserve.  This movement is actually the same movement used by Grand Seiko, the 9S55, but unregulated and non-decorated.

Came with a soft vented rubber strap as standard, now replaced with the Strapcode military nylon strap for a more comfortable wearing.  A very robust and beautiful modern timepiece it is.

When people talked about Seiko Turtle, usually they are referring to modern Prospex remake or the old classic 6309-7040/9 with the wide cushion case running a 6309 movement inside.  That was so iconic that almost every Seiko enthusiasts want one.  One that people paid less attention, or some don't even know, was the slim sized version, the slim Turtle.  Made between 1976 and 1988, the 6309 is ever popular since then till now.

With the same movement as the bigger brother, it has a 6309 movement inside, featuring day/date on the dial.  The dial design is different though.  Unlike the big turtle that uses round hour markers and its own set of 3-6-9-12 marker designs, the slim turtle has a separate set of its own with rectangles from 1 to 11, and 12 with two inverted triangles.  It's successor, the ultra popular 7002, inherited almost 99% of its design.  

The slim turtle came in mainly 3 different theme, the black bezel on black dial which is the 6309-7290, the Pepsi with blue/red bezel on black dial which is the 6309-729A, and finally the very rare orange dial with black bezel and gold fonts, which is the 6309-729B.

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The time before the ever popular 7S26-based SKX007/009 we see in the stores nowadays, there was the 7002 automatic diver that took the world or affordable divers.  The production was between 1988 and 1995, many different versions of 7002 divers had been sold worldwide.

Though they all looks pretty much the same to most people, the differences among them were mostly where they were made and assembled. The origin didn't make any of them better than others, it's just how often you see them floating around nowadays, that is, the state of scarcity.

The one shown here is one of the many variations.  Movement made in Singapore, with the mark 'Singapore' shown on the rotor, the dial from Japan, and assembled in Hong Kong.  This is clearly marked at the bottom part of the dial.  Ones from the other origin will have different markings, and with the help of some enthusiasts on the internet, they had well documented the ways to decode the origin from the dial.