Grand Seiko SBGA387

For years I have been looking at the Grand Seiko line up and waiting for the right one to pop up so I can pull the trigger, but there was a problem, two actually. I was in love with the Grand Seiko “Snowflake” with its titanium case and bracelet and its 41mm I thought it would be the perfect watch for me. It wasn’t. Technically 42mm watches are perfect on my wrist but like most people I forget that its not the case size that matters it’s the lug to lug that truly matters. At the time the lug to lug of 49mm was way to big for my wrist, but with time and a lot of trips to the gym, the watch finally became my size. With the first problem resolved it was on to the second one. Where to find a Grand Seiko in Kuwait, because I never knew that there was a dealership in Kuwait (at this time the Grand Seiko Boutique wasn’t open in Kuwait yet.)

Pictures on Instagram of Grand Seiko’s kept popping up on my feed and I would see how beautiful the dials were, the quality of the watch that rival those of the extremely high end watches. Then all of a sudden a friend of mine noticed my infatuation with the brand and had a watch that he wanted me to check out. Like a Superhero Tokei Ronin flew in and dropped off something special. Not really a superhero more like a person who enables an addict, and we’re both addicted to watches.

I come home to find a little bag with the Grand Seiko there waiting for me to check out, the Grand Seiko SBGA387. That’s the moment I fell in love not only with the watch but the infatuation with Grand Seiko became more of an obsession.

The watch in the 44GS case which was first introduce in 1967, with eye catching Zaratsu finishing, shining and shimmering in all the right places. Coming in at 40mm case size and a thickness of 12.5mm it was the perfect size. But the icing on the cake was the dial, ice blue in color, but the dial isn’t just a plain dial. No, it was painted in the same methods as the ukiyo-o paintings called “Kiza-Zuri”. The textured dial pays homage to the artistic roots of Japan. Accompanying the beautiful dial are the polished hands and applied indices that glimmer at any light. Between the seven and eight o’clock indices lies the power reserve indicator, and at the three o’clock there lies the date window.

The watch is powered by something I never experienced, Spring Drive. Basically it’s the best of two worlds, it combines traditional watch movement with an electronic regulator. Which simply makes the accuracy of the watch go from -4 seconds to +6 seconds a day to +/- 1 seconds a day. Also making the movement of the seconds hands absolutely smooth, smoother than an automatic or manual wound watch I’ve owned, and you can see that with the movement of the pure blue polished seconds hand. The opened case back gives a glimpse in to the 9R65 movement and how the spring drive functions and its 72 hours power reserve.

The watch itself was released strictly for the US market and is part of a trio that were released in 2018 being the first Grand Seiko’s regional exclusives. The SBGA384 in Rose Gold was limited to 50 pieces and the SBGA 385 was limited to 30 pieces. The one I have is limited to 588 pieces.

I knew what will happen once I bought the watch, and I knew what it would do to my bank account. Regardless of that I’ve found that Grand Seiko is in some way a source of happiness when I have it on my wrist, and that feeling means its not gonna be my only one and I will be purchasing more. Which I ended up doing and I will be talking about the other Grand Seiko’s I’ve purchased due to that feeling.