Thought to be the best brand that offers value for what you pay for, the Seiko watch company was founded in 1881 in Tokyo, Japan. The sub-brand Grand Seiko on the other hand was only founded in 1960 with the drive to create the ideal watch in every manner. Let us have a quick history lesson on them.
Grand Seiko started with an advantage against all other brands, because Seiko was already well established and have already built reliable watches. And so, their first watch was a greatly accurate and was the first Japanese watch to comply with the standard of excellence of the Bureaux Officiels de Contrôle de la Marche des Montres.
Then, Grand Seiko released in 1964 a hand-wound mechanical watch with a calendar function called the “Self-Dater”, indicating that the date changes automatically and does not need to be adjusted everyday, and that set the standard for the rest of Grand Seiko’s watches. Their first automatic watch followed and was released in 1968. Grand Seiko’s watches were so good they won every chronometer competition in Japan, and so they went to Geneva to win the Swiss chronometer competitions. So they did in 1968 their movement was awarded the overall prize as the best mechanical watches in the Geneva observatory competition.
Grand Seiko only joined its main brand Seiko in the quartz watch industry in 1988 despite quartz being invented in 1968 by Seiko. Their quartz watches were accurate to -/+10 seconds per year. Which at that time was ahead of all the rest. Then in the 1990’s they shifted their focus back to mechanical watches to create some of the most innovative movements ever. All their watches met the ed Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres (COSC) standards.
In 2002, They made their first GMT watch and in the following year, they made first anti-magnetic watch. But what really set Grand Seiko apart from all other watches, was the innovation of springdrive, which was released in 2004 despite being in work since 1977. The results were very much worth it. That was not enough for Grand Seiko, they started making high-beat watches ticking ten times per second, allowing the reader of the time to tell tenth of seconds.
Grand Seiko is no ordinary brand. It has great finishing, unique dials, innovative movements and fascinating Japanese philosophy. It is without a doubt one of the best watch brands to ever exist. What are your thoughts on Grand Seiko? Do share your experience with the brand in the comments!
