One of the key aims of this site is to be a source of information for those who collect vintage Grand Seiko. We don’t just list the watches that we have for sale in the anticipation that customers will add them to their collections – we also list watches that we have never had in stock, along with as much data about those watches as we can glean. The intent is to be a reliable source of information about exactly which references were created by Grand Seiko, and to provide data on those references.
We are confident that currently this site contains the most complete, accurate and detailed information on the historical Grand Seiko references that you will find anywhere.
Index
Please click on the following link for an index to all articles on Seiko catalogues from the vintage Grand Seiko era.
Available references
At the time of publication, we have a number of watches featured in this catalogue available for purchase from this site.
45GS series watches can be viewed here.
The Seiko 1968 no.2 catalogue supplement
From the late 1960’s onwards, Seiko would publish two main catalogues each year that were distributed to retailers. These catalogues detailed the full range of product on offer, providing a photo of every watch, along with a brief description and salient details including the price, case material, and other basic information.
In addition to the half-yearly catalogues (originally titled “No.1” and “No. 2”, but later changed to “Volume 1” and “Volume 2”), towards the end of the year a supplement to the second catalogue would be published.
We do not possess an original copy of this publication, and are grateful to Anthony Kable of Plus9Time for providing the scans presented here.
Pictured above is the single page from this catalogue that features Grand Seikos.
Readers who have been following all of these catalogue posts may recall that we mentioned the 44GS series was introduced in the supplement to volume 2 of the 1967 catalogue. That series made its last appearance in volume 2 of the 1968 catalogue, and so was marketed (at least from the perspective of the catalogue listing) for just one short year.
This supplement introduces the 45GS series. As with the 44 GS references, these watches were based on manual wind calibres manufactured by the Daini Seikosha company, and references from the series would continue to feature in the catalogues right through until the 1973 volume 1 edition.
Eventually comprising a total of 18 different models, at the introduction of the series in this publication we see the immediate successors to the short-lived 44GS range.
The 4520-8000, available in both stainless steel and cap gold cases, was the replacement for the 4420-9000 and 4420-9990. The most significant change was of course that the movement now beat at 36,000 bph, as opposed to the 18,000 bph of the earlier references. This resulted in a surpisingly modest increase in the prices of the watches, with the base steel cased model coming in at 27,000 Yen – just a 3,000 Yen premium over the low-beat calibre that it replaced.
For the first time from Daini, we also see a Grand Seiko with a date – the 4522-8000, which similarly was presented in both stainless steel and cap gold case variants.
Following the same pricing architecture as seen on the 61GS series in the catalogue this is a supplement to, there is a 3,000 Yen premium for the added date functionality, and an 8,000 Yen premium for the cap gold cased versions over their stainless steel cased counterparts.
Comparing the pricing of the introductory 61GS series references to those 45GS series references pictured here, we can see that Seiko charged a premium of no less than 7,000 Yen for the automatic movement functionality found in the 61GS range.
Gallery
In the gallery below we present scans of the front cover and page one of the supplement to the Seiko 1968 volume 2 catalogue.
