Seiko

Haven't yet got my five Seikos but do have a Seiko 5 :)

 

One of my watches I have not yet written about here - a humble Seiko 5 I got as a present from a trip to Japan my parents did many, many years ago. At the time it was my first automatic and it appeared to me to be the epitome of an engineer's watch - the engineers I knew most certainly did not wear Milgausses or the like

As Seiko 5s are supposed to, it reliably ticked away without much care or attention being lavished on it until it developed a very weird problem overnight - it appeared that the hour hand got displaced by half an hour (i.e. it would point to the hour marker only when it was actually half past). As there were no other issues and as it worked completely normally otherwise, I never bothered with this but I did with time start wearing it less.

Until I finally decided that enough is enough and took it to the AD to check it out. Even if the service was to be more than the watch, I'd probably have gotten it sorted, as it does have an emotional significance - but to my positive surprise, it cost next to nothing to check out and sort, even if it took some two weeks or so.

While it proudly bears the scars of its life (not having been coddled at all) it now works in all its glory and the hour hand once again points exactly where it is supposed to. It also returned with a precision of about +10 secs / day, which is certainly very good for a watch in this price range. So here some shots of the working man's automatic from Japan

Would probably not be comfortable doing this with many of my other watches

But the 5 takes everything in its stride...

Te hands may be a tad short but it does the job. The lume is reasonably strong and lasts surprisingly long if properly exposed to light previously.

So there it is, the cheapest and oldest Seiko in my collection - and probably the only watch I would comfortably refer to as a beater