Baby Marine Master, glacier dial, a gust of loom, and a clasp that's rubbish
A very cold beach
Another Seiko Steve special: the Seiko Prospex Save the Ocean Special Edition SPB299J1, the Glacier dial dive watch, a 1968 heritage reinterpretation, released in 2022. It's one of a trilogy of Save the Ocean special editions. The SPB297 reinterprets the 62MAS from 1965. The SPB299 reinterprets the 1968 6159 300 metre Hi-Beat diver. And the SPB301 reinterprets the Captain Willard 6105 from 1970. All for the beach, just a very cold and icy one.
The dials are said to draw inspiration from the Arctic and Antarctic, each evoking a different shade of glacial ice. What a load of bollocks, but a quite nice bollocks nonetheless. List price £1,160, but it's available today for around £790, or a good used one on eBay for £500ish.
It's just an MM200
Rugged little baby Marine Master: 42 mm, 12.4 mm thick (but it's actually 13), 48.8 lug to lug, 20 mm lugs. 6R35 movement, hacks and hand winds, 70-hour power reserve, minus 5 to plus 25, 200 metres, screw-down crown, unsigned as everything is nowadays. Flat sapphire, beveled, AR coated.
The case cannot be understated. It's the Marine Master case in a reduced form without a monocoque. Drilled lugs. Zaratsu is not featured, but the polishing is almost equal to Zaratsu in my opinion. The end link integration is supreme. Beautifully knurled bezel. It sits above the Sumo but below the real big boys, and the comfortability matrix is beyond thunderdome. But really? It's just an MM200 with a freaky dial.
Do I like the dial? Who knows
Seiko just consistently destroys it with their dial executions. It is a great dial, with brushed and polished hands. I do like it, but it wouldn't do for me. I don't really like it. Seiko Steve does, and Seiko Steve has literally got millions of Marine Masters. Date at three with the sliver. Get rid of that.
The bezel doesn't quite line up, and these 6R35s at £1,000 still don't give you the click at 12. You're getting it at quarter to 11. The crown feels jittery too. Not for the beach.
A gust of loom
He is not a Marine Master. His loom has been applied like a thin willow the wisp in the woods. Just a gust of loom has been slapped upon his indexes. It's not terrible, but it's subpar. Even some of the 4R Seikos I've handled, even Seiko 5s, have loom equivalent or better than this.
Verdict
Beautiful case design, a quite saluted bracelet for Seiko, a clasp which is rubbish, and a useless diver's extension. Movement accuracy is not exceptional for £1,000. I think they could have done a bit better. But it is an attractive twerp. Never give up and stay freaky, bros, in the face.
