Japanese watchmaker Seiko is celebrating sixty years of dive watches by adding a trio of limited-edition timepieces to its Prospex collection.
It was in 1965 that Seiko received a letter from a professional diver, explaining how they wanted a watch that wouldn't be damaged when taken deep under water. This prompted the creation of Seiko’s (and Japan’s) first purpose-built diver’s watch.
To mark 60 years since then, Seiko has added three new dive watches to its Prospex family. They are called the Marinemaster Shinkai 600m Saturation Diver, the 1968 Heritage Diver’s GMT, and the 1965 Heritage Diver’s 60th Anniversary.
We’ll go through these in price order, starting with the most affordable. This is the Prospex 1965 Heritage Diver’s 60th Anniversary, which is priced at £1,270 and limited to 6,000 pieces. It is a modern recreation of the 62MAS Seiko dive watch from 1965, and features a textured light grey dial, a dark grey rotating bezel and a date window at the half-past-four position.
Made from stainless steel, it's driven by the in-house 6R55 automatic mechanical movement with 72 hours of power reserve, and is water resistant to 300 metres.
Next up is the 1968 Heritage Diver’s GMT 60th Anniversary, which costs £1,600 and is also limited to 6,000 pieces. This watch has a GMT and, so can show two different time zones at once, and also has a date window at the half-past-four position.
This stainless steel watch also has a wave-style design to its dial, which is this time coloured blue, along with the rotating bezel. It pays tribute to the 1968 Diver, Seiko’s first one-piece case hi-beat diver’s watch with 300 metres of water resistance, and also has 72 hours of power reserve.
In a first for any Prospex watch, both the 1965 and 1968 models come with a short-pitch length bracelet featuring a micro-adjustable clasp, for making small adjustments and to find the perfect fit.
Finally, the trio is completed by the Prospex Marinemaster Shinkai 60th Anniversary 600m Saturation Diver. This watch carries a price tag of £4,130 and is limited to just 600 pieces. Seiko says this is its most advanced dive watch to date, and it features a blue dial made with a new structure of layered transparency. It’s designed to resemble the ocean waters, and its name – Shinkai – is Japanese for ‘deep sea’.
Justifying the higher price, this watch is made from lightweight titanium with what Seiko describes as a “superhard coating” on the case and bracelet. This is joined by a “diamond-like coating” on the rotating bezel to ensure scratch resistance. Water resistant to 600 metres, the watch is powered by Seiko’s new 8L45 in-house automatic movement, which also has three days of power reserve.
