Seiko Crown Cronograph Tribute Limited Edition

1964 was a good year for Japan: 19 years after the end of the war, the emerging country was allowed to host the Olympic Games, and the Shinkansen showed the world how to build high-speed trains. It still seems hard to believe that it took until 1964 for Japan’s watchmakers to come up their own chronograph – after all, the Swiss first presented them in the 1820s. And now, in 2020, Tokyo once again invites the world for the Olympic Games and Seiko, with three new limited edition watches, shows just how timeless the design of that first Japanese chronograph was.

Sometimes less is more

The three new references – SPB127J1, SPB129J1 and SPB131J1 – are aptly limited to an edition of 1964 pieces each. Interestingly enough, the chronograph function has been left out of these homages to the original. This changes the design very little, though, since their 1964 inspiration was a monopusher – that is, a stopwatch with but a single push button for the start, stop and reset functions. If you wanted to stop minutes, you simply had to rotate the bezel to align the arrow on it with the minute hand and then read the stopped minutes as well as the seconds.

But again, this has all been omitted in these attractive new editions, simple time and date watches which are clearly more about capturing the original’s design than copying its functionality. The size has also been modernized, now at the current fashionable standard of just over 41 mm instead of the original’s 38 mm. The SPB127J1 picks up on the champagne-colored dial of the original, while the SPB129J1 has a modern forest green dial and the SPB131J1 is an elegant black version.

Unlike the Red Snowflake, you can inspect the three models at selected dealers and in all Seiko boutiques. And the 829 € price is quite reasonable, especially considering the built-in 6R35 movement.

Technical Specifictions:

• 41.3 mm diameter, 11.3 mm height, brushed stainless steel case
• Bidirectional black coated bezel, screw-down crown, steel base
• Anti-reflective sapphire crystal; 100 m waterproof
• 6R35 movement, automatic, 70 hour power reserve

Price and Availability:

SPB127J1 – SPB131J1 – SPB129J1: RRP 829 €

Available mid-February