Category: 4420B

Vintage Grand Seiko collection

Some may feel it is a little early for a #GSWednesday post, but it’s gone 2am in Tokyo already, so why not get started 🙂 Featured here is almost the entirety of my vintage Grand Seiko collection. I left out the dodgy black dialed 57GS’s, and a rather scrappy 5722 cap gold, which left me with a nice round 60 to share!
After a lot of research, I believe there were 122 distinct models released in the vintage era, so I’m basically half way there now! I’ve come a long way from the original plan which was just to get a single example of each movement that was used. I doubt I’ll ever complete the full set, but as they say – “never say never” 😂
OK. So who can name every single model pictured here? 😉

#Seiko #GrandSeiko #ă‚°ăƒ©ăƒłăƒ‰ă‚»ă‚€ă‚łăƒŒ #ă‚»ă‚€ă‚łăƒŒ #vintage #vintagewatch #seikofam #watchfam

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Grand Seiko 4420-9000

Grand Seiko 4420-9000 early “Diashock” dial

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Yesterday’s watch was about as far from the “Grammar of Design” that you could get.
Here’s where it all started in 1967, with the earliest 44GS model that followed the dial layout of the 5722-9991 with “Diashock” printed below “Grand Seiko”. Later variants of the all too short-lived 44GS series did not have the “Diashock” text, with the logo for the Daini Seikosha company taking its place.

State of the collection – the 44GS movement

A write up of the vintage Grand Seiko watches in my collection that utilise the 4420B movement.

Note quite sticking to my original planned schedule, I will continue to be posting articles on my collection of vintage Grand Seikos.

Since there are over 40 pieces in the collection, it makes sense to break this write-up over several articles. Each post will cover a specific movement – or set of movements – from the vintage Grand Seiko releases, and include photos of the watches I have that utilise that movement.

Whilst I don’t intend these articles to provide a comprehensive and thoroughly researched scholarly history of vintage Grand Seikos, I will share some knowledge on the pieces that I have picked up over the course of the last year. If I get anything wrong, please don’t hesitate to let me know!

The Grand Seiko 4420B movement
The Grand Seiko 4420B movement

Developed from the 44 King Seiko Chronometer that used the earlier 4420A movement, the Grand Seiko 44 series were the first Grand Seikos from the Daini Seikosha company, and launched in 1966.

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Grand Seiko 4420-9000

For Grand Seiko Wednesday, here is an early 4420-9000 from 1967. The early versions of the 4420’s can be identified by a difference on the dial – underneath “Grand Seiko” is the text “Diashock”. On the later versions, this text does not appear and is replaced by the logo of the Daini Seikosha division that made this model. Vintage 44GS’s in good condition are hard to come by – these early models doubly so.

TBC

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