BY HARLAN CHAPMAN-GREEN
It’s been a while since we’ve covered anything from Seiko’s Presage range. I’m sure they’ve been busy making watches, but we’ve only been able to cover so much. Anyway, let’s take a look at the latest offering, the Presage Craftsmanship Series ref. SPB4451J. Seiko’s Presage Craftsmanship lineup aims to bring a touch of Japanese high art to the Presage line. Meanwhile, Seiko describes the Presage line as a range that “combines a Japanese aesthetic sense with traditional craftsmanship and Seiko’s mechanical watchmaking skills in an original collection that offers Japanese beauty, quality, and long-lasting performance.”
In terms of all that, yeah, I’d agree that Seiko has done a grand job with the new SPB4451J. The watch comes with a classy brushed and polished stainless steel case measuring 40.6mm x 12.5mm and 100m of water resistance. The multilink bracelet appears classy, and a 20mm lug width means there’s plenty of flexibility when adding your own straps to it.
The main draw of this watch is the Arita porcelain dial. This style of porcelain comes from in and around the town of Arita, on Japan’s third largest and most southerly island of Kyushu. According to my Wikipedia research (don’t let my old university professors see me write that), Arita was one of the first places in Japan to make porcelain and started out mostly copying Chinese works. These days, Arita is still well known for its porcelain work and hosts the largest ceramic fair in Western Japan.
In Seiko’s newest watch, this art form is distilled into a clean and smooth dial. The white colouration is very pure, and there’s plenty of texture in the form of the 24-hour subdial sitting in its own ring and an hours ring gently set into the dial while the minute and seconds markers stand raised above. The blue contrast is nice, but I feel there’s too much writing on the dial. I think Seiko could’ve skipped the ‘Automatic’ and ‘3 Days’ text entirely.
The additional writing on the dial does, however, remind us of the calibre 6R5H, which is in this piece. A display caseback shows us this automatic movement, which comes with a 3Hz beat rate, a beefy 72-hour power reserve, and 24-hour subdial. Seiko says this movement is accurate to between +25/-15 seconds per day, not especially accurate even in this price range, but nothing to worry about. If it helps, the fact that it’s a Seiko movement should reassure you that it’s going to be easily worked on in the future.
Overall, the new watch is a classy offering from Seiko and a welcome addition to the Presage Craftsmanship Series. I think this could’ve even gone higher up in Seiko’s range. Perhaps an Arita Porcelain dial on something unusual like a Grand Seiko watch would be interesting. Some of WristReview’s competitor websites have suggested that it reminds them of the watches from Credor, and I dig it. But the $1,900 price tag is, thankfully, nowhere near that.
