Review: A Quirky Watch With Style And Substance. | The Grand Seiko SBGK005

For the full review go to: https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/grand-seiko-sbgk005-review It's easy in my line of work to get jaded. I spend all day, every day, looking at watches, trying to find the most interesting and compelling examples to share with all of you right here. It's a great gig, don't get me wrong, but it can lead to a bit of fatigue. Differentiating one perfectly round yellow gold dress watch from the next can start to seem futile, and there are only so many 40mm to 42mm black-dialed, ceramic-bezeled chronographs that one guy can handle. So, as you can probably imagine, when I see something that stands out, that looks genuinely new, I get very, very excited. On a spec sheet, the Grand Seiko SBGK005 might not sound revolutionary, but in the metal and on the wrist it offers up something special that I struggle to compare directly to anything I've seen or worn before. The watch is a hand-wound dress watch at its core, but the unusual case design, brilliant dial, and attention to detail throughout all push it into a category all its own. After seeing it a few times since its release in February, I knew I had to spend some quality time with the SBGK005 to see what it's really about and if it could stand up to my favorable first impressions.