I have been dealing with a wave of ennui for the last eleven months. Every time something gets resolved, a new issue arises. I have been as interested as ever with watches, but I’ve grown to be more and more of a cynic.
My tastes in watches have changed. I’ve been exploring more complicated stuff and larger case sizes. Coming from a world of 34mm dress and every day watches, even a 38mm diver felt big. I’ve grown to appreciate larger sizes more. I like dive watches, especially when they’re vintage, even if that means I don’t take them near water. I really like chronographs. I find them fun to fidget with, but I’m not keen on fixing them.
However, I still gravitate towards one type: light dial, black strap watches with few complications. The subject of today’s review is one of those: my Seiko Lord Matic 5606-7050.
Yes, the quickset is broken. It actually broke within five minutes of me owning it.
The Lord Matic lineup is sort of JDM. From my research, some Lord Matics were exported to Europe, and some to America, but those were apparently not sold under the Lord Matic name. Mine is a JDM model, at least according to the caseback inscribed “Japan-J.” It uses the Suwa-Seikosha-produced calibre 5606, which features three hands, day, date, hacking seconds and quickset day-date, which is broken on probably 90% of Suwa LMs.
The cause of this issue is the plastic quickset wheel or whatever it’s called, which gets brittle over time. It works perfectly fine before the danger zone of ~22:00 to 03:00, but if you dare try change it when the hands are there, it will break. I don’t mean might break; I’m willing to take a punt that that part will fail if used in that manner every single time.
There is a guy on eBay who makes metal replacements, but those are costly when import duties and shipping are factored in, especially in a case where the watch itself is not a very desirable model or in pristine condition. Mine is by no means undesirable and the condition is very good overall, but I can’t justify paying what I paid for the watch on one part alone. Hopefully I can get a 3D model of the part one day and 3D print a replacement.
The movement beats at 21 600 A/h, which is neither exceptionally fast nor slow. I started researching the mathematics of watchmaking and truly saw how much work goes into changing a watch’s frequency. The balance needs to be smaller and denser for inertia purposes, and the hairspring needs to be stiffer. Then the mainspring needs more torque, which usually requires more space, so on and so forth. 21 600 A/h is a good middle of the road frequency. Good accuracy with a good power reserve if a more torquey mainspring and stiffer hairspring is fitted.
My Lord Matic keeps good time. I haven’t regulated it, as it runs well enough for my standards. The case is reminiscent of the C-shape Omegas. It’s a nice shape that wears really well. A small niggle I have is that it’s a front-loader. That’s not typically a huge issue with old watches that have bezels that come off with the crystal, at they’re easy to press back on, as you have all the surface area of the crystal to aid you. The Lord Matics are different. They use a mineral crystal, which sits snugly in a gasket and is then surrounded by the bezel, which is hard to push in without a press and set of dies.
After purchasing my LM, I didn’t wear it all too much, especially when compared to another watch I bought from the seller, a Seiko Business-A, another, albeit lesser known, JDM Seiko. The Business-A was just better looking and the unabbreviated kanji day wheel is a splendid sight.
Somewhere along the way, I fell in love with it. I started wearing it more often. It really is a good watch. It doesn’t have fancy complications, it doesn’t have a spectacular dial. Everything is simply above average and adds to the feel of a premium vintage watch. The Lord Matic is a baby King Seiko, which is a baby Grand Seiko. It’s the baby of the baby, which is probably why the market isn’t showing them much love. There was speculation a while ago about King Seikos going up in value soon. As far as I can tell, that hasn’t really happened. Maybe the Lord Matic will be next. If the King Seikos go up in value someday, it wouldn’t be completely ridiculous to imagine LMs seeing minor bumps in value.
Do I think that this will ever happen? It is possible, but I’m not holding my breath. Is the LM some kind of secret bargain potential investment? No. Watches have appreciated in value and some definitely will get their day in the spotlight soon. No one knows what watches those are until everyone knows what they are. The watch market bubble during COVID gave many people the wrong idea about watches as investments. The Lord Matic isn’t underrated and just waiting to shoot up in value. It’s a nice watch and sells for nice watch prices.
Maybe I’m wrong about all of this and I’ll wake up tomorrow and hear that Lord Matics are changing hands for thousands of dollars as another big reminder from the universe that I actually know nothing about anything.
The Escapement Room 