Grand Seiko was founded in 1960, with the goal of creating the perfect timepiece—a work of precision, durability, and beauty. Seiko was already the watch world’s model on “vertical integration” (the company even grows its own quartz crystals and makes its own batteries), making Grand Seiko the natural extension for the Hattori family as they passionately aimed at perfection. The first Grand Seiko, a caliber 3180 from 1960, was the first watch to be made in Japan and be compliant with Controle De La Marche Des Montres in Geneva, the most respected chronometer rating facility in the world.
Grand Seiko is celebrated for its exquisite finishing standards in everything from the watch hands to the case, to the hour markers all the way down to the buckle. Their ‘zaratsu’ technique, which Grand Seiko describes as “a method of polishing metal parts of a watch by pressing them against and emery cloth or paper abrasive on the side of a rotating metal disk’, is legendary and to this day the labor-intensive process is still used across all models in the Grand Seiko lineup. They also have a long history of textured, and colorful dials and have experimented with different materials and movements. Today, Grand Seiko is known for its extreme value on the market and its amazing array of dials.