Attempting to start adding content here!
Grand Seiko Japan-market prices are increasing for all models. This is part of a long trend of Seiko/GS moving upmarket.
Additionally, it’s been an open secret that you can literally buy a round trip ticket to Japan and buy a Grand Seiko there for less than a US dealer.
This is due to the very weak JPY right now, and GS probably doesn’t like it.
If you’ve been fence-sitting about importing one from Japan, prices change on April 4!
Good to see some content, and thanks for the heads up.
Interesting. Seiko wants but will the market follow?
I guess we’ll see how much the increase is.
Over the past 2-3 years I found GS watches have gone from good value to just fair.
And I’m not sure they have the brand differentiation from plain Seiko, outside watch nerds, to carry it.
Yep, GS has some careful navigation to do. Their new 9RA5 thermocompensated spring drives are quite impressive.
A hand assembled, hand black-polished (hands, case, bracelet and all!), and fully in-house manufactured watch - this cannot be found outside GS until you hit $30k-$50k haute houses.
Even Rolex only black polishes a few movement parts and makes use of part picker tools and outsourced parts to assemble >1mil watches a year.
GS indexes are placed by hand, by eye, by one person using pure experience! By contrast they hand make 30k watches a year.
But as you said, does that matter to the global consumer when $10k gets you a Rolex? We will see! Maybe they become the next haute brand eh?
Everything about GS watches is impressive, and everything you said is absolutely factual.
Watches at that level of pricing are status symbols, if the brand cache diminishes instead of enhances the status that’s not a good thing.
You spend $5-15k on a jewellery / time piece you are not doing it to tell the time - if the circle you want to impress is not instantly impressed “wow what a cool watch, oh it’s just a Seiko?”, you get into a discussion about the merits of craftsmanship you would never get into with a Rolex or even a Nomos or other lesser known brands.
I think something similar to what Casio has done with their Oceanus line (though even Casio should drop the Casio logo completely from that brand - Toyota/Lexus comes to mind) might be the way to go here.
As it is Seiko is fighting against itself - though, on the other hand that’s great for watch nerds like us as it puts a natural cap at what the market will bear in terms of price and they need to keep on impressing the fan base with better and more innovative techniques.