My Most Worn Watch of 2023

What a shock! My most-worn watch of the year was a Seiko! Specifically my SRPG19 King Turtle PADI. It’s the watch I’ve just seemed to reach for when I wasn’t trying to match an outfit or fit some Instagram hashtag of the day or whatever. It’s also the one I grabbed most when I was just around the house or got tired of what I put on in the morning and wanted a change. The comfortable pair of shoes thing… It fits well, it’s tough, it isn’t so expensive that I have to be careful with it and it looks way more expensive than it is. I never tire of looking at it.

I got it for a steal early this year thanks to my tax refund, a Macy’s sale and a long-forgotten Macy’s gift card from the halcyon days of when I almost exclusively shopped from their Calvin Klein discount rack. I paid a whopping $246 for it. Maybe one of three times I’ve bought a watch at the right time.

As I said in my “Five Favorite Seikos” post, my father wore a Turtle variant of some sort when I was a kid until he got into Flightmasters. To me, it’s the quintessential steel dive watch. Even more than the Submariner to me, but I’m probably in the minority. This is my second Turtle alongside my SRP775 and I’m trying to narrow down a choice for a third.

The “King” variants are very-much improved with the sapphire crystal, sapphire bezel insert and better finishing on the bezel and case. I honestly think that the hardlex looks better on some of the colorways, but it’s great on this black dial. For some reason, it seems like the “New School” black PADIs with the globe dial pattern and Miami blue accents don’t seem particularly popular. Seiko has applied this treatment to many of their models and I often see them at a discount. Sometimes, they’re even cheaper than the “base” versions. Mine definitely was. I don’t get it. I think it looks great and comments here, on Facebook and my Instagram seem to agree.

The stock bracelet isn’t horrible, but from previous experience, I knew it would let the watch down. I ordered a Strapcode Miltat Boyer Super-O before the watch even shipped and it arrived the day before the watch. I never even sized the OEM one. For what I paid for the watch, dropping another $90 was fine with me. Not only does the Strapcode fit better and look better. It also adds a bit of weight and just feels more solid. I like a bit of heft and at 174g, this is about perfect. I do have a matching light blue tropic from Strap Habit that will see some summer use, but I much prefer the bracelet.

Downsides, I don’t hate the candy bar magnifier as much as most, but wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t there. My close-up vision sucks, so I do use it so I’m not going to bother removing it. And a small thing, but that shiny black bezel sure is a smudge magnet and makes it a pain to photograph sometimes. And I wish it had the usual PADI two-color lume.

Overall, I really love this watch. Obviously. I’m a fickle man and I’m sure it won’t be my most worn next year, but I bet it will still be in the top three. Just a fantastic tool watch.