Brand history
Kintarō Hattori opened a clock-and-watch repair shop in the Ginza district of Tokyo in 1881; the brand’s mechanical watches today are made at the Morioka Seiko Instruments plant in Iwate and the Shinshu Watch Studio in Shiojiri.
Founded 1881 in Tokyo by Kintarō Hattori as a clock-and-watch repair shop in the Ginza district; the first Seiko-branded wristwatches appeared in 1924. Seiko is the largest watchmaker in the world by volume and produces watches at every tier from the sub-$100 Seiko 5 to the haute-horlogerie Credor. The catalog represented here focuses on the brand’s mechanical lines, the 6R-series calibers and the Prospex sport-watch family, which trade in the sub-$2K enthusiast-Japanese-mechanical conversation. The Seiko-Prospex 1965-diver re-issues (SPB143, SPB153) and the Alpinist are the modern reference designs; the discontinued SARB033 remains the brand’s most-cited affordable-mechanical reference.