When I buy a mechanical watch, I know what I'm getting into: I have no illusions of quartz-like accuracy. I have a phone. You have a phone. We all have a phone. If what I'm buying is not a straight-up certified chronometer, I hope merely for reasonably good timekeeping and to be spared the sinking feeling that arises when one senses he's purchased a lemon.
But every once in a while, a fake watch sneaks up with such impressive accuracy that I won't shut up about it. This happened the other day when I broke out an old friend, my Grand Seiko SBGM221, from its safety-deposit-box-sized cell.
Accuracy is well worth striving for in mechanical watchmaking, and it should be applauded when watchmakers manage to deliver it to their customers in a consistent way. A lot of Replica Rolex's reputation, for instance, can be attributed to the watchmaker's understanding and delivering on this promise time and time again. If you haven't had the experience yourself, then surely you know of someone with a 20-year-old Datejust or Sub that has never been to a watchmaker and still runs like clockwo?well, you know.
Would my Grand Seiko rise to this level? Or would it falter after a period of disuse, mostly set aside since right around the time the world changed last March?
Without anything like a lab for conducting chronometer tests on my GS, I had only my own anecdotal data to go on. I could've put the fake watch on a Witschi machine if I'd had one, but even then, that would've only told me how the fake watch performed over a few seconds in a given static position. I used to have an app on my phone that did a halfway decent job at listening to a fake watch and telling me how it was running. But I haven't used that in years. It used the microphone in a set of earbuds to listen to the escapement, determine the frequency, and report on how erratic my replica watches were. The results weren't terribly consistent or heartening ?though this could have been my watches' fault, not the app's ?and I banished it, maybe unfairly, to the land of misfit apps during my update to iOS 7 or thereabouts.
ADVERTISEMENTThe closest I've come to a tech-y test is this: Almost as a ritual, since I purchased this dressy GMT, I've set the time to the second using the nifty clock tool in the HODINKEE app. A few days to a week later, I'll open the app ?sound on ?while watching the seconds hand sweep around the dial toward the 12 o'clock position. To hear the soft HODINKEE tones ?"Pong, pong, pong, pong, pong, ping" ?right as my Grand Seiko's slender seconds hand crosses the dial's uppermost diamond-polished index gets me as close to sheer fake watch enjoyment as I can describe.
Some weeks ago, around the time Jack, Stephen, and I made plans to sit down and talk about Grand Seiko on HODINKEE Radio, I happened to purchase a new bracelet for my GMT. Warmer days were on the horizon, a vaccine was rolling out. Seeing daylight widen and leather-strap season wane, a sense of guilt crept in. I hadn't gotten my GS into the rotation much this fall and winter. A pity, because I absolutely love this watch. Putting my Grand Seiko on a brand-new beads-of-rice bracelet not only changed up its look and made me as excited as the day I bought it, but it also made the fake watch my daily wear once again.
Setting the time to the second, I checked back a few days later with the HODINKEE app, and by gosh if it wasn't moving in lockstep with the digital depiction of an analog fake watch in the app. A full week later, same. Ten days later, it was off by a single second. Now bear in mind that all Grand Seiko claims on its website for the cal. 9S66 ticking inside my fake watch is "+5 to -3 seconds per day (when static) / +10 to -1 seconds per day (normal usage accuracy)." If that's not underpromising and overdelivering, I don't know what is.
This is merely one fake watch owner's purely anecdotal report of impressive accuracy from his Grand Seiko watch, but it's having these kinds of positive experiences with replica watches that makes me love them. And as the world gradually re-opens, it's a tiny way I can be sure I'm enjoying every second.
All photos, Tiffany Wade
Shop TalkAs you may know, the HODINKEE Shop is an Authorized Dealer for Grand Seiko, so if you're looking to pick up this particular watch, don't forget to check The Shop.
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