Seiko 5 Sports “Suits Style” Vintage Black Ref. SBSA017

Seiko made its first watch in 1913, and 50 years later, Seiko 5 was born in 1963. In its long history, Seiko 5 has won respect, affection, and loyalty of young people from all around the world. Seiko 5 Sports offers a new opportunity to feel the spirit of the active and innovative design of that time. Seiko set out to build a watch with five attributes, from which the watch gets its name: a self-winding automatic movement, resistance to water, a day-date in a single window, a recessed crown, and a durable case.

Seiko has long offered their extremely reliable yet affordable Seiko 5 sports collection, especially the SKX diver line for us watch enthusiasts who want to get our hands-on with true mechanical horology at a pocket-friendly price, and boy do they caught on since 1963. However, Seiko’s decided its time to end the long-running SKX sports models recently, and that caused serious commotion among us and its daunting. Until recently…

Today, the Seiko 5 Sports legacy has returned, and their back with some significant upgrades while staying true to their design roots. Seiko has relaunched the line-up with the same affordability and even tougher built.

Before we get into the new Seiko 5 Sports line-up, we are excited to inform you Seiko enthusiasts that this whole new collection is available as JDM (Japan Domestic models)! This JDM collection is denoted with the "MADE IN JAPAN" at 6 on the dial. And the good news is that we at Gnomon provides these JDMs Seiko 5 Sports for all of you.

The Seiko 5 Sports "Suits Style" Vintage Black Ref. SBSA017 is one of the most iconic SKX's re-issue design language watch among the rest. If the Submariner is the iconic luxury diver of the modern era, then the SBSA017 is the affordable quintessential. Staying through to its undisputed "starter" watch for every budding mechanical watch collector. And that's what makes is so desirable even for seasoned watch collectors — well known for its robust built and classic design.

The Seiko 5 Sports "Suits Style" Vintage Black Ref. SBSA017 took a more subtle approach for the first time since its Skx days. It features an open back and now powered by Seiko's automatic caliber, 4R36, operating at 21,600 BPH (3 Hertz) with hacking and hand winding capabilities. It has 24 jewels with a power reserve of 40 hours. This is a significant upgrade from the previous 7S26 non-hacking and winding caliber that used for the old SKX007J1. You know what, since this JDM model features the day/date display, one can self-select the day display to Japanese kanji characters, or in English.

The Seiko 5 Sports "Suits Style" Vintage Black still holds a 100m water resistant stainless steel case measuring at 42mm wide without the crown, a lug to lug length of only 46mm, and a height of about 13mm, with a lug width of 22mm. The whole dimension and case design are right to its predecessor, thus moreover the short lugs to lugs length mean this watch wraps around the wrist on all(small or big) wrist sizes like a glove making it extremely comfortable.

The bezel is aluminum and has large printed markings on it. It rotates buttery smooth into 120 positions has little to no free play in an anti-clockwise direction. Sitting atop of the bezel is Seiko's Hardlex. The finishing is outstanding, features both satin-brushed and polished finishings throughout the whole watch, resulting in what a well-done tool watch should like.

The grainy fume black dial gets some attractive vintage makeover while still utilitarian. Like for instance, the new Seiko 5 logo has the "5" tilted 45 degrees anti-clockwise. The Logo is then balanced off symmetrically with the bottom Seiko's Sumo "Automatic" font style instead of the old orange "diver's 200m" text. The large and SKX's heirloom indices stay home and make reading easy as it always has done so, so are the classic Seiko hour and minutes hands. The hour markers painted with vintage "caramel" tone, and now surrounded by metal trims. Same goes for their vintage color hands, while both generously coated with Seiko's faux-patina LumiBrite allowing it to glow brightly in the dark for hours. Another thing to highlight; the Suits Style edition features a retro cream-colored rehaut with minute hash marks, complementing oh so well with the vintage theme here.

Good things don't stop there — the Seiko 5 Sports "Suits Style" Vintage Black Ref. SBSA017 comes with on a period-correct style mesh bracelet, Milanese style to complete the retro look while leaning more towards a dressier side. This grants one to wear it from a beach vacation to suiting up for a formal dinner.

Seiko's revival of the Seiko 5 Sports has repetitively filled the void of the affordable and reliable mechanical timepiece in the market successfully. The new generation of heritage designed Seiko 5 Sports "Suits Style" Vintage Black Ref. SBSA027 is something new (such a fresh move for Seiko to produce something like this), while still probably one of the most iconic dive watches in the history of dive watches. The vintage colorway transformed the heritage SKX diver look into something more subtle yet retro and attractive. Given its cult status and price, it's re-born status good news and is once again available for all of us with the intention is to own a piece of dive watch history or to have a "go-anywhere, do-anything" watch that packs extraordinary value.

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