Our Favorite Seiko Watches of All Time

Knowing I would never sell a watch from my kids, I asked them for a “black watch with four hands” for Father’s Day, and pretended to be surprised to open the preowned SSK025 I’d been negotiating for on eBay the week prior. Going on two years of ownership, I’m still smitten with its textured dial and raised Arabic numerals every time I put it on, which is often. I’d like to think that this stealth GMT that transformed me from Seiko curmudgeon to proud owner would have stuck around even without parental guilt keeping it off r/Watchexchange. Not only is it a versatile piece that fills the single GADA slot in my sparsely populated watch box, it also marks a moment of clarity, expanded horizons… and so many Seikos to suddenly lust after.

Christoph McNeill – Seiko 5 Sports Speed-Timer 6138-0030 “Kakume”

Choose and write about my all-time favorite Seiko?? I feel like a kid in a candy store, but also paralyzed from the innumerable options I have! Anyone that knows me knows I love Seiko, they are my favorite watch brand, for so many reasons. What is my favorite model? That’s a tough question, and I’m sure like most of you, one that could vary depending on the time or day I was asked. Several models immediately came to mind, the 6215, 6159 or 6105 divers, the Grand Seiko 5722-9990 or the King Seiko 44-9990, the list goes on and on. However, for today, in this moment, I’m going with something a little different, the Seiko 5 Sports Speed-Timer 6138-0030 “Kakume” chronograph.

There are two slightly different iterations of the Kakume, with small changes to the hands and dial nomenclature, as well as there being two different dial colors of each style, blue and champagne. My favorite is the blue dial with dauphine-esque hands. First of all, this watch is absolutely gorgeous, plain and simple. These came out in the mid 1970s, and definitely exude 70s style, but they are also timeless and do not look dated as so many vintage styles can. The 43mm steel case is big and chunky, but not unwieldy. Like most Seikos, it exhibits sharp edges and flat planes, and you can see the residual influence of the Seiko “Grammar of Design” aesthetic. The watch comes with a well-made steel H-link bracelet that compliments the case perfectly, and has a signed buckle that includes a springy clasp extension. 

But what really seals the deal is the deep blue dial with starkly contrasting up/down white subdials. Even though there is the ubiquitous Seiko day/date window at three (with Japanese and English days), there is a symmetry with the copious dial text of “Seiko, 5 Sports, Speed-Timer” on the opposite side. The steel hands have a white stripe on them, in tune with the white stripes on the steel stick markers. And don’t forget the matching deep blue tachymeter bezel protecting the flat-topped Hardlex mineral crystal. I mean, the watch is just aesthetic perfection in the form of a chronograph if you ask me. 

And don’t forget the mechanical marvel sitting behind the eye candy, the Seiko caliber 6138 chronograph movement. It’s an automatic movement that is also hand windable (not common for Seiko movements), with a column wheel and vertical clutch coupling mechanism. The day/date also has a true quickset feature. It’s easy to wind and set, easy to use, comfortable to wear, especially with the springy clasp extension, and easy on the eyes. The Kakume has it all: brawn, beauty, and brains. What more could you want in a vintage Seiko? Now, ask me what my favorite Seiko is next week, and it could very well be something else…

Brett Braley-Palko – Seiko 7N43-8A39

Seiko has a way of punctuating the small milestones in my life, ways in which the brand has become a sort of fallback in my collection. For instance, when I went to Paris for the first time, I packed with me a Seiko Pepsi, having seen a post on Tumblr (remember those days?) of a male model wearing one along the Seine. When I interviewed Jack Carlson for a story on Rowing Blazers, I was gifted a Seiko 5 with a lime green dial. And the first watch I ever bought for myself? Well, it also happens to be my favorite: a dressy little number, the reference 7N43-8A39.

While some may think it’s nothing special (and, in fact, I’ve since lost this particular watch through the various moves I made in my 20’s), it marked a sort of time in my teens in which I realized I could buy something for myself. With the debit card filled with direct deposits from my job at a gas station, I remember searching through eBay for the most exotic name I could recall from the limited knowledge I had about watches: Seiko. Keep in mind, I’m from rural Pennsylvania, so we were a bit limited on culture circa 2008. It was far too dressy for a 17-year-old in high school and I never got the bracelet adjusted (I didn’t know you could), so it hung quite limply to the first knuckle of my thumb. Stainless steel and with a scratched crystal, it became the default accessory when I’d go on dates or when I participated in Future Business Leaders of America competitions. 

Looking back now, years on, I realize how pure my relationship with watches was at that time. I wasn’t chasing brands or saving up for a Tank to just wear twice a year. I didn’t think about whether or not it would look good posed next to a pen or book on my desk for an Instagram story. Instead, I blindly found a style I liked and, without thinking, bought it. There are few things I do now based solely on instinct and how I envy the younger me who, quite naively, had $25 to prove he was an adult and that a quartz watch was, somehow, going to do just that.

Alec Dent – Seiko G757 Sports 100

James Bond may be best known for his obsession with Submariners and Seamasters, but periodically the British spy donned something unexpected on screen. The Seiko G757 Sports 100 is one such watch. With a digital display featuring the time and date, plus alarm, dual time, and stopwatch functions, the G757 is far more complicated and practical than most of the watches you see Bond wear — special laser modifications and whatnot excepting. 

The G757 may have been cutting edge tech when it was first introduced, but today it looks charmingly antiquated. It has a retro-futurist vibe that makes it look like a G-Shock designed by a character in The Jetsons. While the technology behind it is now outdated, the Seiko G757 Sports 100 is a fun reminder of Seiko’s status as a leading innovator in the watch world.

Tommy DeMauro – Seiko “Pogue” 6139

Over the last few years, I’ve attempted to become somewhat of an aficionado on all things vintage Seiko both through my work with Worn & Wound and the personal research and posts I make on my Instagram account. I currently own around three dozen Seiko models out of the over 110 watches in my collection as a whole. Even with that many watches to choose from every morning, there’s one Seiko model that always catches my eye and finds its way onto my wrist regularly: the Pogue. The 6139 movement and its many applications in Seiko models of the 1960s and 70s have been central points of fascination and mystique to me for a very long time. Though it took me over ten years to get one in my collection, I simply can’t imagine not having at least one example in my watch box at all times now, it’s become a staple for me. 

This model needs little introduction and has consistently been praised as being one of Seiko’s most beloved models. As a history buff, of course the rich connection of being the model NASA astronaut William Pogue hid in his space suit for the 1973 Skylab 4 space mission is an incredible tidbit of provenance to have. However, its timeless design and incredible use of colors is what truly sets it apart. Having become such a polarizing model within the art of watchmaking, it would be near impossible for another watch company to create a new watch with a yellow dial and Pepsi chapter ring and not immediately draw connections to the Pogue. From its incredible dimensions to its perfectly proportioned dial, the Pogue is truly a work of horological art. If it’s a model you’ve never had the pleasure of handling or owning, I cannot recommend them enough. While I own several other mechanical chronograph Seiko models––including the other notably famous 6139-fitted “Cevert” model, the striking and dynamic use of primary colors are what make the Pogue top dog of the pack. Visually striking, widely revered, and aesthetically revolutionary, there’s simply no other choice to me besides the Pogue. 

Griffin Bartsch – the Next One 

I’ve owned a lot of Seikos. I’ve owned very few of them for longer than a few months. So when Zach sent out the email asking us all to pick our favorite Seikos, I was slightly flummoxed. I mean, I could go with a classic, like the SKX — I’ve owned plenty of them over the years — or something a little bolder, like the gold-tone Seiko Prospex Turtle SRPC44 I spent a lovely summer with a few years ago. Or I could choose my Worn & Wound Seiko 5 that was put together for W&W’s 10th anniversary a few years ago (which is certainly the Seiko I’ve owned the longest) or the vintage 6106 that I got in a Holiday Yankee Swap last year. But somehow none of those picks felt right, because my favorite Seiko isn’t any watch I’ve owned.

My favorite Seiko is the next one. And it always has been.

The joy of Seiko for me has always come in the churn. Unlike most of my watch purchases, buying a Seiko has rarely, if ever, felt like a long-term commitment. I’ve bought, sold, gifted, traded, modded, and even destroyed (sometimes through modding) plenty of Seikos over the years. To crib and alter a line from Patek, “You never actually own a Seiko. You merely look after it until the next thing catches your eye.”

Especially when I was getting into watches in the early 2010s, Seiko was an amazing brand that let me experience a huge volume of watches without feeling like I had put in so much money that I was locked in. I could always find some weird new diver, vintage chronograph, or slightly unusual dress watch to scratch whatever itch I was feeling — and if I couldn’t, I could mod one until it did the trick. The Seiko of yesterday was the perfect gateway for everything watches, and was the rare cheap watch that never felt out of place in what was a pretty gatekeepy hobby at the time.

Sitting here today, I don’t know when my next Seiko will come for me. For so many reasons, I don’t churn through Seikos the way I used to. That’s partially due to maturity — I just don’t move watches around as much as I used to — but it’s also because Seiko isn’t necessarily the brand it was ten or fifteen years ago (or hadn’t you noticed?). Still, whether or not Seiko can capture a bit of that old school magic again, I’m sure I’m not done with the brand. Or, put another way, I’m pretty sure the next one is still lurking somewhere around the corner.