Nice write up. Thanks very much. That is indeed a nice example you found. The japanese do tend to polish their watches so a crisp one is tough to find.
I'm definitely with you. The KS45s seem to be a lot of watch for not much money. I've been looking for a nice birth year example of a KS45 for maybe a month now. Since Seiko is so explicit with the serial numbers, I'm trying to get the birth month as well.
The KS45s have 3 things going for them, in my opinion:
1. Manual/hand wind. The collection could use a manual to rotate with the 3 automatics. (ha, a little irony there. it can't rotate because it's not automatic)
2. 36000 bph. So far I have a 18000, 21600 and 28800 bph. I love watching the 28800 sweep. I can't wait to see the smooth sweep that the 36000 bph would produce.
3. Gold medallion on the back. The KS would bring another medallion back to the collection. Cool.
4. Affordability.
I've thought about expanding the search to include the GS version, specifically the 4522 movement. I just found those today. The GS is obviously more expensive than the KS, so we'll have to see. I'm still in the more affordable phase of the collection.
I've kind of ruled out the 52xx and 56xx movements. They are automatics and they only beat at 28800. The 45xx movements have the 36000/manual mystique.
