Diver's as wrist accessories.

I don't own a lot of diver's and among them there are even fewer which are ISO 200m diver's. It's more a matter of personal taste and preference rather than finding any real issue with diver's. I just think that diver's evolved (or devolved depending on your point of view) from necessary tools into fancy wrist accessories, and while I don't see anything wrong with this I just find other type of watches more interesting and appealing. I also don't dive anymore. Aging joints and tinnitus don't cope well with pressure changes.

Wearing a watch as a social status statement or as a fancy wrist accessory is fine in my opinion. It's not something that appeal to me, but there are so few jewelry options open to men that using a watch for this purpose is something that I can understand. The problem arise when I want to pay a tool price for something which is now placed in the bracket of jewelry. Or in other words: The 62MAS conundrum.

The original 62MAS was a simple and affordable watch targeted at recreational divers. It wasn't even particularly original in its design and it may therefore be considered as a landmark for Seiko, but it was far from breaking any new grounds. And I wanted one, not an overpriced vintage with laughable specs, but a real simple and modern dive watch that will look like a 62MAS build to 21 century specs.

The 62MAS isn't the only 60's era watch that is still considered iconic in 2024, and neither are Seiko the only game in town. But I wanted a modern 62MAS, and I found that I could not have one from Seiko. What I found were either models that didn't hold up to inspection and differed too much from the 62MAS (SPB), or models that did look like Seiko put some efforts in recreating the spirit of the 62MAS, but decided that these efforts (SLA and SJE) should be rewarded by asking for prices that would have sent the original customers from the 60's straight to the floor, either by the sheer absurdity or through a cardiac arrest.

I had to go as far as China to find a decent alternative to Japan. The San Martin SN007-G-X was, and still is, everything I wanted from a modern 62MAS. the 37mm size is almost spot on, it's not thick assed like the SPB, the style and proportions of the indices and handset are almost the same as the original 62MAS, it's priced almost exactly like the original (taking into account inflation and the fluctuation of currency exchange rates), and the quality is there because the fit and finish rival those of my SPB147, and the reliability of the Chinese PT5000 has proven to be much better than what the disappointing 6R has to offer.

The only thing that I had to do was to change the massive bracelet it came with to a more period correct looking FKM waffle strap. FKM doesn't feel like rubber and is a bit weird to the touch, but it's something you get used to - as opposed to the prices that Seiko are asking for their versions of the 62MAS.