[How I end up with another... Seiko]
This year was a remarkable year for my company, record sales generated a pretty handsome sum of commission in my bank account. It is end of the year again, butt-itchy season is here and I told myself: I need to get a nice present for myself.
Did months of research and read-ups on the Internet, end up short-listing a few models from NOMOS, Ball, Omega, Maurice Lacroix. These are mostly dress watches as I thought a dress watch will be nice addition to my collection. In the end decided to get a NOMOS, quickly checked my schedule and booked a flight to BKK in Jan 2015. I visit NOMOS website and WUS very frequently and somehow something odd happened: My interest in Bauhaus design slowly faded when I saw more brands offering similar designs eg Stowa, Daniel Wellington, and even some b*tards from Kickstarter campaigns! Heck even my fiancee told me "wow, this watch looks nice... how much is it? $3.50?" when I show her the NOMOS on my iPad. Yeah to a non-WIS a NOMOS does look the same as those cheap watch you can find at shopping malls. I argued with her this is full in-house movement, and look at the back of the watch! She replied sensibly... "so my dear, you gonna wear the watch face down huh?"
In Nov/Dec there are more and more Grand Seiko reviews and threads emerged in WUS forum, I made a trip to Seiko Boutique at JEM to check on their GS offering. When I saw the display cabinet there, the first model that caught my eye was this particular model shining bright at me... the SBGE001 Spring Drive GMT. Why was it shining? Read on...
I played with the GMT Diver, together with a SBGA029 (Spring Drive Diver). The 029 looks too plain... very similar to other MarineMaster divers. I just cannot let go the GMT, with permission from the sales lady I removed the plastic film, twisted the bezel, unscrewed the crown... basically molested the watch for almost an hour at the boutique, then casually asked her for the best price. BAM! She lifted my interest high up and smashed it to the ground. $9-fking-thousand for this? I returned the watch to her and left. There is no way I am going to spend $9,000 on my next watch.
Reached home... the GMT Diver still lingers in my mind calling at me "buy me buy me". OK, since I have decided to fork out $4,000 to get a watch probably I can double my budget. Told my fiancee that I am getting a $9,000 watch, she said "oh you are getting your first Rolex". "Huh? Rolex? never cross my mind as Rolex to me is an ah-pek watch". Made a trip to Hour Glass with her and tried some of the models there. Sub... too small, Sub GMT... nice but small also, Deep Sea... quite thick. In the end decided on the Deep Sea but price is just way too high for me to swallow.
My interest fall back to the GS and that lead me to drop an email to Seiya and Higuchi. Within a day I received their response and due to falling Yen the GMT Diver can be had for much lesser than local Seiko boutique (hint: almost 50% cheaper). Within 30 minutes I paid through Paypal and got a confirmation from Higuchi. My months of research finally ended. And a week later my admin staff passed me a parcel... there were Japanese characters written on the box, I knew this is it.