Watch Wednesday Thursday (7/8/10)

While I'm at home this morning waiting for Comcast, let's talk about my most recent watch purchase (since we were supposed to do it yesterday...).

Today Seiko is a well-known brand, but it wasn't always that way. In the 1960s, American watch companies like Bulova and Timex dominated the middle and lower portions of the market (largely because most people couldn't afford a prestige Swiss watch like an Omega or a Rolex). In its home market Seiko was producing lots of great watches, but they wouldn't make an impact in this country until the rise of quartz and digital watches in the 1970s.

This is an automatic-movement Seiko Sportsmatic that I believe is from the late 1960s. (There's a number on the case back that might lead to more info, but I haven't attempted to look for any yet.) I make this estimate based on its features and appearance: I've seen an earlier model with just the date and without the "5" on the dial (that still appears on Seikos to this day, including the one I bought a couple of months ago), and the case is of a very traditional shape, suggesting it predates the more adventurous designs of the '70s.

The earlier model that I saw for sale online quite some time ago is what got me interested in getting one of these for myself. It had the same almost-black dial, but when I started searching on eBay, I saw only watches with silver dials for a long time. Also, one of the things I like best about this watch is the italic lettering chosen for "Seiko Sportsmatic," and most of the watches I was seeing had to be later versions, because they had the "SEIKO" lettering applied (glued on) to the dial in larger, all capital letters (the modern version of their logo that we're accustomed to seeing), and "Sportsmatic" underneath, also in capital letters but painted on. This watch's lettering not only looks nicer, it announces in a very subtle way that it's a vintage piece.

I also like the silver ring around the outside of the dial, which provides some contrast and ties in to the hour markers and hands. And don't you love those pointy (sorry, "dauphine") hands? Also present if you look closely is the crown at the 4 position, which was something of a Seiko hallmark that Bulova appropriated for certain Accutron models of the same era. It has one extra-cool feature that Accutrons did not: if you push in on the crown, it advances the date with a nice, solid thunk.

However, I have no idea if this watch is capable of doing the day-advance trick that I figured out I could do with my Caravelle world time watch; Seiko seems to have designed the crown to be nearly unnoticeable when it's not pulled out for setting, which is cool, but to accomplish this the crown is very thin in profile and has hardly any edge surface, making it very difficult to grab securely. It's so awkward to use that I am considering sacrificing some of that flushness and having it replaced with one that is a little easier to handle.

And as I'm sure you noticed, I don't yet have a strap for this watch. I got it into my head that this watch needs to be on a medium brown strap, which is somewhat unusual for me--it's probably because the original Sportsmatic I saw for sale online was on a brown strap, and I thought it looked really good. I did order some straps from The Watch Prince, including a brown one, but it was too light and looked kind of orange, so I returned it. None of the other straps I bought seem right for this watch, so I'm still looking for something suitable.