Hey guys! This is Balazs, and welcome to another Zoom episode. Today I'll be
talking about the Grand Seiko High-Beat SBGH201. It's a beautiful and very
significant timepiece for Grand Seiko, as it's basically the reincarnation of the
legendary 1960s Grand Seiko High-Beat. If you want to learn more about the watches
in general, make sure to subscribe to our channel, where you can find other
interesting videos related to watches, such as our in-depth watch talks and
reviews, as well as event recaps and how-to videos. But for now, let's talk about
the Grand Seiko High-Beat SBGH201.
This watch comes from Grand Seiko's Heritage
collection, and it is very similar to the SBGH001J, which was a Grand Seiko
produced by Seiko. As you may know, Grand Seiko used to be a sub-brand
of Seiko. A few years ago, however, the Japanese brand
moved out of Seiko's shadow, and it became a full-fledged
brand. Back then, this watch was the SBGH001J, as a Seiko Grand Seiko. Right
now, it's the SBGH201 Grand Seiko. It has a stainless steel case, which
is 40.2 mm in diameter and 13 mm thick.
It's not a thick watch per se. It has a beautiful design, which is
reminiscent of vintage Grand Seiko models from the 60s with polished and
brushed surfaces on the lugs, on the side of the case, as well as on top of the case.
The watch has a screw-down crown. When you unscrew it into the first position,
you can set the date, and in the second position, you can set the time.
When you pull the crown out to the second position, the second hand stops
thanks to the movement's hacking mechanism.
The watch is water-resistant to 100 m (~330 ft) or 10 bar. It has magnetic
protection, and it weighs 151 grams. Inside the watch, you have
Seiko's caliber 9S85. The 9S caliber line is not the revival of the 10-
beat movement of the past but rather a brand new version of this high-precision
caliber. Just a quick summary of the 10- beat movement: It came to market in
1968 as Japan's first automatic 10-beat movement. They then paired it with
these watches from Grand Seiko. It was developed and produced by Grand Seiko.
"10 beat" means that the caliber is a "high- beat," so the movement beats 10 times
per second. The caliber in the 1968 watch was the 61GS, a 10-ticks-per-second
caliber. Then you had the 45GS, which was the manual version, and the 19GS,
which was used for women's watches. This movement is a high-beat automatic with
manual winding capability. That means you can screw the crown all the way down to its
0 position to manually wind the automatic
movement. It has a 55-hour power reserve, 37 jewels, a date feature
at 3 o'clock, and a hacking mechanism. This Grand Seiko
has a beautiful white dial with a contrasting blue seconds hand.
At a certain angle, the hand looks dark blue, and from another angle, it looks
light blue. There are applied indices all around the dial. The Grand Seiko "GS" logo at
12 is also applied. Finally, there's a date window at 3 o'clock.
The crystal is domed sapphire crystal with an anti-reflective coating on the
inner side. We have a steel bracelet with three main links and two small
additional side links for decoration. The main links are brushed and the two
little lines of decoration are polished. If we flip that watch over, we see that it
comes with a Grand Seiko clasp with push buttons to release
and close. The price of this Grand Seiko on Chrono24 is between €4,500–5,500 (~$4,900–6,100).
As you can see, it has
gone up in value quite a bit, especially between September 2019 and February 2020.
So, the Grand Seiko High-Beat SBGH201 is a sophisticated timepiece with
an elegant design and high-end modern technology. It's also strongly connected
to Grand Seiko's history, as it resembles their legendary 1960s high-beat watches.
What do you guys think about the SBGH201? What do you think about
Grand Seiko in general? Let us know in the comments below. If you liked the
video, make sure to subscribe to our channel! Thank you for watching, and have
a nice day! Enjoy your watches. Bye-bye!