GRAND SEIKO SBGW047

About Grand Seiko SBGW047

Grand Seiko Historical Collection

44GS 1967 Reissue Mechanical 100th Anniversary Limited Edition

The re-creation of a Grand Seiko classic
In celebration of 100 years of Seiko watchmaking, a Grand Seiko classic is back. In 1967, when the 44GS first appeared, it established a new look for the collection as it was the first Grand Seiko watch to embody and express the design ideas that a young designer had recently defined for the brand. When the very first Grand Seiko watch was created in 1960, its sights had been set on the purely functional goals of precision, practicality and comfort, and its appeal rested on the engineering excellence of the movement. In the early 1960’s, a young university graduate who had recently joined the company saw that this focus on movement engineering was not enough. As he studied the watches on display at the Wako luxury specialty store in Tokyo, he realized that Seiko needed to create watches which sparkled more brilliantly and he determined to set a style for the brand. He invented the “grammar of Seiko design” and the 44GS was the first watch designed to this new specification. The distinctively sober, but sparkling, look of Grand Seiko was born.

A uniquely Seiko aesthetic
The “Grand Seiko Style” is at once typically Japanese and yet unique to Seiko. In its serenity, it reflects the subtle and restrained sense of beauty that Japanese culture values most highly. However, this calm quality to the design is complemented with a very strict insistence in every detail on the pure essentials of watchmaking: precision, durability and legibility. The combination of these ideas is at the heart of the Grand Seiko aesthetic. The watches gleam brightly and yet are restrained and refined. At the cornerstone of the “Grand Seiko style” is the aesthetic consciousness in Japan of the beauty of light. The Japanese treasure the subtle gradation of the infinite number of shades between light and dark. This is why, for example, Japanese forms such as folding screens and shoji (paper screens) are made of what seem to be simple, straight lines and flat surfaces, but in fact are constructed in such a way that they make possible a wide variety of shades of interwoven light and dark depending on the place and the time. The radiance of every Grand Seiko watch is also attained through this unique Japanese aesthetic consciousness, and consequently while simple, is highly distinctive with its distortion-free polishing adding sharpness to every light reflection.

The 44GS Limited Edition
The new Limited Edition replica of the 44GS is as faithful as can be to its predecessor. It uses a hand-winding movement, carries the emblem on the case back and is the same size. In the stainless steel execution, the dial, hands and indexes are identical.

Thanks to the precision of Seiko’s latest machining and polishing techniques, to hold and to study the new 44GS is to experience the quiet perfection of traditional craftsmanship re-invented for a new era. A classic is re-born.

Limited edition of 700 pieces.

About 9S Mechanical

In 1968, Grand Seiko introduced Japan’s first automatic 10-beat watch (61GS) to the world.

In 2009, 10-beat Caliber 9S85 surpassed the original, with high precision parts created using sophisticated modern technology assembled with skills honed over the many decades of Grand Seiko’s watchmaking.

Innovations to the precision controlling mainspring, the hairspring, and the escapement mean that the 9S Mechanical is not simply a revival of the 10-beat movement of the past, but an entirely new incarnation of this high-precision movement.