Grand Seiko SBGN029

After the birth of my son, I knew I needed to celebrate and commemorate this monumental occasion. I needed to purchase I watch, that maybe one day I would hand down to my son when the time is right. I had booked a ticket to Japan before my son was born, and the thought then hit me. I’m go purchase a watch from the Grand Seiko Flagship store located at the Wako Building in Ginza Tokyo. Now came the difficult choice, I need to choose which Grand Seiko I was going to buy to celebrate this joyous occasion.

The Wako building is where the Seiko Group Corporation is. Meaning it’s the epicenter of everything Seiko, and it shows it. A top of the building there is this beautiful Seiko Clock tower that compliments the beautiful building. There is a Seiko Museum, a Seiko Boutique, a small bakery that belongs to them and the Grand Seiko Boutique itself. Knowing I was going there I decide to wear my Grand Seiko SBGA387. Walking into the Grand Seiko boutique you’ll find that on the ground floor it wasn’t just Grand Seiko watches on display but some Swiss watches too including Breitling and Breguet that caught me off guard a bit, but I made a b-line straight to the Grand Seiko section and just gazed at the watches, forgetting that I had already made up my mind on what I wanted.

I knew I wanted something that could be a daily watch, so I decided it would be one of the Quartz watches that Grand Seiko had to offer. Also I had to narrow down the style of the watch, should I go for a dress watch or something more sporty that would be truly a daily watch. Naturally I chose the latter. After narrowing down my options, I had it down to two watches. The Grand Seiko SBGX261 and the Grand Seiko SBGN029. Two watches under 40mm case size, quartz powered, and came in on a steel bracelet. Which ticked all the boxes

I had. Now was the difficult choice of picking which one I wanted.

The SBGX261 is a beautiful no nonsense watch, strictly three hand with a pure black dial and the typical Grand Seiko Zuratsu finishing on the hands and the case. It’s a simple and beautiful watch that would work with any outfit and has that timeliness look due to the watch being simple. With a 37mm case size it was the perfect size. That for me was a major positive considering that I want to hand the watch down to my son one day. But then I put the SBGN029 on my wrist and immediately fell in love with the watch.

The SBGN029 comes in with a bigger case size than the SBGX261, at 39mm. The dial is completely different though with this beautiful blue sunburst dial, that shows this dark blue when the light hits and turns black when its dark. On top of that the watch has a GMT function, which I am a big fan of. So which should I go for? While I was deciding on which watch I was going to get for myself, my eye caught something. It was the Grand Seiko STGF359. Which was a women’s watch, and I was also in the market for a women’s watch to get my wife as a gift to celebrate the change in her life as well, motherhood. The moment I saw it I knew I had to get it, and I did.

I informed the employee that I would like to get this watch and that I was torn between these two watches for myself, the employee asked me to follow him, so I did. I was taken to the second-floor lounge where I was surrounded by the history of Grand Seiko. The story of the brand was all over the place, you walk around and every display had watches from the inception of the company back in 1960 to the present day. The employee sat across from me explaining the differences between both watches that I was torn by while another employee was preparing the STGF359 for my wife. In the middle of all this a third employee came and brought a bottle of water and some iced green tea for me to drink while I waited.

After spending a couple of minutes looking at both the SBGN029 and the SBGX261, I finally made my decision, and I chose the SBGN029. Let’s talk more about the watch. As I stated the case of the watch comes at 39mm with a lug to lug of 45.9mm. The sunburst blue dial and the Zuratsu finishing on the case meant the watch would shine in the sunlight. Unlike my SLGH005 and the SBGA387 the hands didn’t have Zuratsu polishing but were brushed and had something not a lot of Grand Seiko’s have, lume. The hands are shaped more like the SLGH005 than the SBGA387, but the fourth hand is painted red with an arrowhead functioning as your GMT hand. All the hands expect for the seconds hand have Lumibright painted on them, including the 12,3,6, and 9 hour markers.

The watch is a true GMT, with the bezel being fixed with 24-hour markings resembling the bezel of the Rolex Explorer II. An inner chapter in the dial with another 24 hours markings split into AM/PM with Dark Blue upper and Silver on the bottom. Unlike most of the Grand Seiko watches, the crown is not located at 3 o’clock but at 4 o’clock making wearing the watch more comfortable because I know it wont be digging into my wrist.

The watch is powered by the 9F86 Quartz movement, with an accuracy of 10+/- seconds a year. Unlike most other watch brands, Grand Seiko grows its own quartz crystals, ensuring that they are of the upmost quality, rather than going and purchasing them. The 9F movement is unlike other quartz movements, rather than ticking at one second interval it has a two step, no not the two step dance. Meaning that the watch will tick twice a second which can’t be seen by the naked eye. The 9F86 movement just like all the other quartz that Grand Seiko makes are all hand assembled, rather than something machine made like other watch companies would do.

The watch has become my go to watch. For the past week I’ve been wearing it almost daily, even when I’m at home. It fits my wrist perfectly and the fact that it’s a quartz movement means that I don’t have to worry about winding the watch or if its doing to die on me. The SBGN029 has become one of my favorites in my collection, and truth be told when the time comes I hope my son will find as much joy as I have when I wear this beautiful watch.