Grand Seiko have a large release slate at this year’s Watches & Wonders across multiple collections. There’s a healthy mix of high end artistic watches, their signature nature inspired patterns and fresh innovations. Highlights include the Mystic Waterfall, Iwao Blue and ‘Ushio’ Spring Drive UFA, which expands the Ultra Fine Accuracy concept to their dive watches for the first time.
Grand Seiko Mystic Waterfall
The Grand Seiko Mystic Waterfall is the latest addition to their range of Special Engraving models, which includes 2023’s Majestic White Birch. The majority of the dial, case, bezel and lugs of the 40mm platinum watch are hand-engraved by traditional Japanese artisans. As the name suggests, the inspiration for the chaotic, seemingly random pattern depicted is the spray of water from a waterfall. Specifically, the Tateshina Otaki Falls: a picturesque falls in the deep forest near Grand Seiko’s Spring Drive workshop.
Housed inside the engraved case is the 9R02 manual Spring Drive movement, offering a power reserve of 84-hours and a daily accuracy of +/- 1 second. You’ll be able to appreciate that accuracy thanks to the clean precision of the Dauphine style hands and blued seconds hand produced in white gold, matching the white gold baton hour markers.
The Mystic Waterfall is a limited edition of 50 pieces at a price of £74,500 including VAT. As an expression of traditional hand-engraving skills rendered in one of the planet’s most precious metals, it’s an impressive timepiece.
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Grand Seiko ‘Ushio’ Diver Spring Drive UFA
While we don’t traditionally associate Grand Seiko with dive watches, it’s an archetype they’ve taken on several times, most recently in 2022 with the Kuroshio Black Stream Diver. The new Ushio divers are essentially the modern follow-up to that launch from a few years ago, exploring similar aesthetic ideas but with updated legibility, durability and new movements.
Starting with the cases, the new divers are significantly more compact than the 2022 version, at 40.84mm x 12.94mm in diameter and thickness compared to 43.8mm x 13.8mm. Yet, at the same time, the water resistance rating has been improved from 200m to the professional standard 300m. There are also updates to the bracelet with a new micro-adjustment clasp. It’s still made from titanium with a ceramic insert dive timer bezel.
For the dial, we have a similar water themed texture, inspired by the currents around the Japanese archipelago, though this time presented in a choice of blue or green instead of black. The primary update here is the swap from circular hour markers to rectangular ones, providing a larger surface for the lume, improving low light legibility. For similar reasons the central hands have also been updated, particularly the hour hand, which is now wedge-shaped instead of a sword – creating better clarity and also a stronger harmony with the arrow minute hand that is unchanged.
The biggest change between this generation of dive watches and the previous model though is the movement. The Grand Seiko ‘Ushio’ Diver Spring Drive UFA houses the 9RB1 Spring Drive, which is a new power reserve indicator version of the 9RB2 that debuted last year. It has a 72-hour power reserve and is accurate to the mind-boggling rate of +/-20 seconds per year, hence the moniker Ultra Fine Accuracy. For pricing, the Grand Seiko ‘Ushio’ Diver Spring Drive UFA is £10,500.
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Grand Seiko ‘Ice Forest at Dawn’ Spring Drive UFA Boutique Exclusive Limited Edition
The Ice Forest series is where Grand Seiko first introduced the UFA concept last year and they quickly proved that it was to become a mainstay of the collection by releasing a special edition in Violet a few months later. Now we have a second special edition in the form of the ‘Ice Forest at Dawn’ Spring Drive UFA Boutique Exclusive. It takes the same Evolution 9 case shape, measuring 37mm in diameter and presents it in gold for the first time.
Alongside the newly precious case, the dial has also seen an aesthetic update. Rather than having a full Ice Forest texture like the previous models, that pattern is only seen on a horizontal band across the centre of the display. The top and bottom of the dial instead fade out into pure black, specked with flecks of gold like stars. It’s designed to represent the dark moments before dawn in a larch forest.
Powering this model is the 9RB2 movement with 72-hour power reserve and that UFA +/- 20 seconds per year accuracy. For availability, the watch is limited to 80 pieces and boutique exclusive. It’s priced at £38,700.
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Grand Seiko Cherry Blossoms ‘Sakura-Wakaba’ Hi-Beat
It’s somewhat telling of Grand Seiko’s mechanical focus recently that the Cherry Blossoms ‘Sakura-Wakaba’ Hi-Beat is the first non-Spring Drive wristwatch in this article. Which is understandable as Spring Drive is really a niche that Grand Seiko is known for and wants to develop. However, there are still lots of collectors who prefer the mechanical purity of more traditional movements like the 9S85 here with its 55-hour power reserve and +5/-3 seconds per day accuracy.
That movement is housed in a 38mm diameter gold case with the 62GS design with its clear lines from lug-to-lug and no bezel. It’s essentially a yellow gold sequel to the pink gold Sakura-Kakushi from last year. Where Sakura-Kakushi means cherry blossom hidden by snow, Sakura-Wakaba means cherry blossom and young leaves, celebrating the progress of spring and new growth. That’s also why the dial is less rosy in its tone. Though it uses the same dappled, slightly frosty texture. For pricing, the Cherry Blossoms ‘Sakura-Wakaba’ Hi-Beat is £29,000.
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Grand Seiko ‘Iwao Blue’ Spring Drive Online Boutique Exclusive
Another example of Grand Seiko revisiting older concepts comes in the form of the new Grand Seiko ‘Iwao Blue’ Spring Drive Online Boutique Exclusive, which is a modernised version of the Katsu-Iro online exclusive from 2021. They share the same dark indigo colour and rock surface inspired texture. However, the modern version has a much cleaner display absent of the power reserve indicator and date window of the older model. It also has more refined hour markers with narrower facets.
The updated display is contained in a 38.5mm steel case with a sweeping round design and smooth bezel. The curving lugs lead into a 9-link steel bracelet that has a similar construction to a beads of rice design but with squarer, less rounded links.
Powering the ‘Iwao Blue’ Spring Drive Online Boutique Exclusive is the 9R31 Spring Drive movement with manual-winding and a 72-hour power reserve. It also has that (non-UFA) Spring Drive accuracy of +/-1 second per day. It’s priced at £8,700 as an online exclusive.
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Grand Seiko ‘Red Lion’ Spring Drive 8-Day Jewellery Watch Limited Edition
On the haute jewellery front, we have the Grand Seiko ‘Red Lion’ Spring Drive 8-Day Jewellery Watch Limited Edition. An 8-piece limited edition in gold with over 250 diamonds across its case, bezel and dial, produced by Grand Seiko’s Micro-Artist studio. It essentially takes the 140th Anniversary watch and turns it up to 11 with even more diamonds and ostentation.
The central disc is red mother-of-pearl surrounded by a diamond hour scale, which is itself surrounded by a diamond minute scale, which is then surrounded by the diamond bezel. Each with a different cut of diamond to make it surprisingly easy to read once you make the mental translation of diamonds = indexes.
Beneath that dial is the 9R01 Spring Drive movement with manual-winding and 8-day power reserve. That’s equivalent to 192-hours. In order to accommodate the barrels required for such a large reserve, the watch does have to be quite big itself – measuring 44.5mm diameter x 14.43mm thickness. Unsurprisingly, it has quite an intense price tag of £250,000.
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Grand Seiko Cherry Blossom ‘Hana-Ikada 32mm’ & ‘Hana-Ikada Blue’ 62GS
The final launch in the Grand Seiko Watches & Wonders release slate is a pair of ladies watches at 32mm. They’re the Cherry Blossom ‘Hana-Ikada 32mm’ & ‘Hana-Ikada Blue’ 62GS, with one in pale pink and the other in an intense blue. The term Hana-ikada refers to the idea of floral rafts – the phenomenon where cherry blossom petals fall onto a river and clump together like tiny Sakura rafts. The two colours are designed to represent this image in the day and at night.
Powering this collection is the 9F51 quartz movement. Normally I wouldn’t bother specifying a quartz movement’s accuracy but since we’re talking about Grand Seiko and Spring Drive movements that are starting to get into the accuracy levels of quartz, it’s accurate to +/- 10 seconds per year. The Grand Seiko Cherry Blossom ‘Hana-Ikada 32mm’ & ‘Hana-Ikada Blue’ 62GS are priced at £3,200.
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More details at Grand Seiko Boutique.
