However, we know that recently, within the SPB collection, Seiko has done a lot to please its fanbase, by reducing significantly the size of its watches. A nicely designed watch for sure, yet with the inconvenient of many Seiko watches, a 44mm diameter. Its massive size, its signature design, its iconic gilded accents all of that fostered the legend behind the watch that is a hot item on collector’s lists.”įollowing the release of the vintage-inspired SLA025, Seiko also created a fairly priced model, with modernized design, the SPB077 – which was reviewed here.
The Automatic Diver 300m was the first hi-beat diver’s watch on the market. In just three years, Seiko had doubled the water-resistance, improved the functionality and legibility of the watch and gained drastically in precision.
Seiko spb update#
This watch was not just an update of its predecessor.
Seiko spb professional#
6159-7001Ībout this watch, we said “ In 1968, three years after the creation of the 62MAS, Seiko delivered another impressive and innovative professional dive watch, the Automatic Diver 300m Ref.
It indeed already featured all elements that made modern Seiko diving instruments easily recognizable – the angular lugs, the crown at 4 o’clock, the typical applied indexes and hands… The original, 1968 Seiko Automatic Diver 300m hi-beat ref. While not the very first dive watch of the brand (that the 62MAS), the 6159-7001 could be considered as the one that laid the foundation for the brand’s design codes, which are still in use today. The 1968 diver has recently been a major source of inspiration for Seiko. Today, the Japanese brand releases another pair of watches, the SPB185J1 and SPB187J1, once again built around the design of the 1968 diver… But these are more than just simple colour updates. Needless to say, both models were perfect examples of Seiko’s savoir-faire in diving instruments. There was the ultra-faithful SLA025 (which has been done in blue this year, with the SLA039) and, more accessible, there were the SPB077 and SPB079. At Baselworld 2018, we’ve seen two models that were walking in the footstep of the reference 6159-7001.
This isn’t the first time that Seiko brings a watch in its Prospex collection inspired by the classic Hi-Beat 1968 diver.