Grand Seiko reborn – the genesis of a grand watch

In 1988 the caliber 9581 and the 9587 was Seiko’s first forage into GS territory after the GS brand was abandoned in the early seventies, as the Grand Quartz was in 1980 - but not the Superior.
There are too many GS models to get into here so let us just pay homage to the last of the vintage Grand Seiko - the range of the 56GS series. The 56 contained no “special” or “VFA” examples - but there are 35 different models produced from 1970

[color=#000000][size=medium][font=Calibri, sans-serif]Grand Seiko, the model shown below, was originally called the Seikomatic Chronometer and (for the first time) housed an automatic movement running at 19.800bph, the caliber 6200. It was introduced in 1966 but produced already in late 1965. There is some confusion with the other Seikomatics of the sixties, but let’s not forget that Seikomatic merely indicated a contraction of Seiko and Automatic. More on this just below.[/

Luxury in the 1960s

The first Seikomatic appeared in 1960, austere in design and function, but providing the starting point for a luxury product line that culminated into the early Grand Seiko. Features included waterproof cases, more or less mysterious complications like calendar, slimdate, selfdater and of course an automatic movement fitted with the brilliant magic lever invention, which uses pawls (consider them paws actually) rather than direct gearing between the oscillating roto