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Seiko Cronos

S
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Very nice and nice bracelet. Do you find them a bit stiff to manually wind?


QUOTE="JamesTYO, post: 1728413, member: 59403"]I have a Cronos Sea Horse. The hands on this are wrong, thanks to a mix up with a watchmaker I have them on another donor watch and need to get them moved over. (These are for the lumed version, my dial is the non lumed one).
Nice watches, fiddly cases, to me one of the earliest really decent Seiko's and of course the precursor to the divers.
I happened to get this one on its original strap - mostly vintage straps are the worst thing about old Seiko but this one has quite a bit of charm despite being a bit beat up.[/QUOTE]
 
JamesTYO
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S Shay
Very nice and nice bracelet. Do you find them a bit stiff to manually wind?

No this isn't stiff, actually all my old manual Seiko's are fairly free winding. I have had two of these go through my hands and both were fairly easy to wind.
Perhaps not modern ETA feather light, but stiff wouldn't be my description.
 
S
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JamesTYO JamesTYO
No this isn't stiff, actually all my old manual Seiko's are fairly free winding. I have had two of these go through my hands and both were fairly easy to wind.
Perhaps not modern ETA feather light, but stiff wouldn't be my description.
Ok I must have a problem with mine. When I try to wind it, it tend to spring back. The only comparison of a manual wind watch I have is the speedmaster which is very smooth. I don’t expect the cronos to be that smooth but there is resistance when I try to wind it.
 
S
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My Seiko Cronos was tested on the timegrapher today and it was super accurate 1sec/day. Does anyone know how good the movement of these Cronos are?
 
sleepyastronaut
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Hey Shay,

I'm happy to hear you were able to sort out the winding.

The Cronos was a significant milestone for Seiko in their effort to build a Chronometer grade movement. The Cronos is the basis of the Seiko 44 family, including the 4420 movements. The 4420a movement is self-certified Chronometer in the King Seiko 49999 / 4420-9990 and the 4420b meets the 'Grand Seiko standard' in the GS 4420-9000 & 4420-9990.

The 'Chronometer' and 'GS Standard' 4420 movements contain 27 jewels, the non-chronometer King Seiko 44 contains 25 jewels, and the Cronos movements contain 23, 21 or 17 jewels. They're all derived from the same architecture, but Seiko added extra jewels to the highest spec models.

After 50-some years, your 21j Cronos is running within Chronometer accuracy, as is my 25j KS. What I still don't understand is, why the need for the extra jewels in the 4420? Is it possible, as I've read, Seiko was just 'playing the jewel game'?

I think the accuracy you're seeing means the Cronos is highly underrated.

Some more good reading here: https://www.seiyajapan.com/pages/the-history-of-grand-seiko
Edited:
 
sleepyastronaut
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The one with the red 50 might need a little TLC, the time grapher readout with the crown up showed it running +25 seconds
 
S
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sleepyastronaut sleepyastronaut
The one with the red 50 might need a little TLC, the time grapher readout with the crown up showed it running +25 seconds
Yes I agree, will need to get it check. The seller put it on eBay today and I thought I might as well get it. It is nice to have both variant. The red 50 is not as clean as the blue, but still decent.
 
sleepyastronaut
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S Shay
The red 50 is not as clean as the blue, but still decent.

Case looks very nice on the red 50 😀
 
S
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Why are these watches so undervalued? Great design, good case, shock absorber and chronometer time keeping, When I compare this to Swiss vintage counterparts, it has a much better specification than many Swiss watches.
 
ikanbilisclub
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S Shay
Why are these watches so undervalued? Great design, good case, shock absorber and chronometer time keeping, When I compare this to Swiss vintage counterparts, it has a much better specification than many Swiss watches.

I'm late to this thread and I share your sentiments that these are great watches to be had in a collection or for everyday wear. I'm very glad they are still very much affordable at this juncture and hope they stay that way for years to come.
 
S.H.
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I'm waiting for this one, another J13046 variant with the red "50m" rating. I wonder how it looks like compared to a beefy lugs seamaster...



i-img900x1200-1625961396zss72p146025.jpg
 
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