Glashütte Original SeaQ Chronograph Watch Review
The Glashütte Original SeaQ Chronograph features two counters and is designed to measure short periods of elapsed time. The model is equipped with the brand’s legendary Panorama Date and wonderfully blends practicality with sumptuous style. Mark McArthur-Christie, gets nostalgic, remembering the iconic Spezimatic Type RP TS200 of 1969 as he appraises this contemporary, robust tool watch.
The scene
A silent sidestreet in East Berlin, late 1969. A man in a dark, rain-slicked trench coat leans on a wall just outside the pool of illumination from a flickering streetlight. He snaps open a flat, steel lighter, cups his hands and touches the flame to the end of a Juwel. He checks his watch, the luminous hands stark against the black dial. 11.30. Exhaling the smoke, he straightens at the sound of approaching footsteps. Right on time…
Spezimatic Type RP TS 200
Clearly, our spy would be wearing a Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe Spezimatic Type RP TS 200. With its distinctive pointer-tipped minute hand, large radium numerals, cal.75 movement and built-like-a-T54 construction, it was perhaps the ideal cold war watch for the smart agent-about-town.
Glashütte Original
Things were very different back in the days of the East German nationalised watchmaking industry. Given the history, it’s remarkable that not only did the country’s watchmakers emerge from behind the Iron Curtain in 1990, they have positively flourished since. They now produce some of the most distinctive watches out there with a quality of finish that gets their rivals in La Chaux-de-Fonds swearing into their morning coffee.
Glashütte Original SeaQ
The new Glashütte Original SeaQ Chronograph is one of them. The SeaQ family has been around since 2019 and has taken several cues from its ancestors. For a start, there’s the serious water-resistance. For the Chronograph it’s 300m (100m better than the three-hander), which will meet most subaquatic needs, save for exploring the Mariana Trench. And, being a diving watch, a high contrast dial and hands are a must. Tick. The oversized Arabic numerals with an open ‘6’ and some serious lume, serve to heighten its deepwater credentials. Appropriately, it’s ‘Old Radium’ Super-LumiNova pigment – so only your watch glows in the dark. The SeaQ isn’t a watch you’ll struggle to read.
DIN 8306 and ISO 6425
All these diver motifs aren’t for show, either. The SeaQ Chronograph is tested to DIN 8306 and ISO 6425 standards for divers’ watches. Neither organisation issues their test passes out on the back of cornflake packets, and the standards are stiff. Even if the nearest you get to water is a glass of eau petillante with dinner, the standards for legibility (25cm in the dark), shock-resistance and anti-mag are worth having (the silicon hairspring helps with the latter). Likewise, the robustness of the strap-fixings comes under scrutiny. To pass, everything should stay secure and, crucially, unbent, even if the bracelet is subject to a 40 kg load for sixty seconds.
Glashütte Original SeaQ Chronograph – Panorama Date
Clearly, the case is the first line of defence for all these tests. The crown (the most vulnerable point of any watch when it comes to water resistance) needs to keep water out even under 25% more pressure than the overall case rating. It helps that the display caseback screws down into the case. And the crown now does everything – it hacks the movement as well as setting the time and date. This means you still get the trademark Panorama Date display but no case-side corrector that might introduce a further vulnerability into the case. It makes for easier setting, too.
Glashütte Original SeaQ Chronograph -rotating bezel with ceramic inlay
Finishing-wise, something Glashütte watchmakers always excel at, the stainless steel case is a combination of polishing and satin-brushing on the vertical faces. At 43-and-a-bit millimetres, it’s not a watch you’ll forget you’re wearing (weighs a bit, too) but the solidity is reassuring rather than excessive. You’ll find an ISO/DIN-compliant unidirectional diving timer bezel too, but nowadays the insert is ceramic, a scratch-resistant material that won’t fade over time.
The 43 mm size gets scaled back a little thanks to those lugs and the way they arc down, snugging the watch to your wrist.
Calibre 37-23 automatic
Inside, Glashütte Original has chosen its Calibre 37-23 to power the plot. Bluntly, you could put one of these on the wall in a frame and just enjoy looking at it. Glashütte finishing is, rightly, legendary. You want the whole list? OK. There’s a Glashütte three-quarter plate with Glashütte striping. Then there’s a self-winding rotor which is skeletonised with a Glashütte double-G symbol and incorporates a 21-carat gold weight. Screws are either polished or blued (properly heat blued, too) and wherever there’s an edge it’s been bevelled and polished. Even the top of the column wheel shines.
You should get 70 hours of power reserve from the 65-jewel movement if, oddly, you decide to take your Glashütte Original SeaQ off for a bit, and the balance runs at a now pretty standard 28.800 vph (4 Hz).
The movement looks after the usual hours and minutes and there’s a small seconds subdial over at 9 o’clock with a 30 minute counter at 3. The central chrono seconds hand has a flyback mechanism. Hit the reset pusher while the chronograph is running and the seconds hand snaps back to zero and immediately starts again. And there’s the trademark Panorama Date. The small seconds hand is a little unusual. Rather than being plain like the chrono minutes counter, there’s a tiny lumed lollipop halfway along so you can keep an eye on it at night.
Flyback chronograph
This all does rather raise the question of why anyone needs a flyback when they’re diving, let alone why you need a dive watch at all, given the prevalence of dive computers. But that’s not really the point of the Glashütte Original SeaQ. Although the watch will happily dive, it’ll happily do whatever else you want, too, and look wonderful while it does it. Some flyback chronographs can be a tad fragile, but not this one. If you were going to have just one watch (ok, who are we kidding?), this could do the job.
Glashütte Original SeaQ Chronograph – PVD blue dial
The dial itself has a PVD blue base with rhodium-plated appliques, each infilled with Super-LumiNova. Texture-wise, the main dial has sunray finishing with the subdials picked out with circular graining.
Fabric strap, rubber strap or metal bracelet
There’s a decent choice of straps to keep your SeaQ on your wrist, all of which change the look of the watch. The micro-adjustable stainless steel link bracelet is properly dressy and modern, while the dark blue rubber strap and the grey/blue synthetic fabric straps subscribe to a vintage aesthetic. These latter straps also tick the eco box, as they are actually made from recycled fishing nets.
Glashütte Original SeaQ Chronograph – closing thoughts
Although it’s neither fish nor fowl, that’s not a bad thing simply because this combination of flyback movement and diving case works a treat. It is – as I’ve suggested – a potential Everywatch. That flyback complication has got me thinking though… wouldn’t a proper flieger from Glashütte Original also be a treat, especially with the firm’s impressive heritage?
Further reading
https://www.glashuette-original.com/
Technical specifications
- Model: Glashütte Original SeaQ Chronograph
- Reference: 1-37-23-02-81-33 (rubber strap)
- Reference: 1-37-23-02-81-34 (grey fabric strap)
- Reference: 1-37-23-02-81-36 (blue fabric strap)
- Reference: 1-37-23-02-81-70 (metal bracelet)
- Case: stainless steel, diameter 43.2 mm, water resistance 30 ATM (300 m), sapphire crystal to the front and solid case back.
- Functions: hours, minutes, small seconds with stop seconds, chronograph with flyback, Panorama Date
- Movement: Calibre 37-23, self-winding movement, frequency 28,800 vph (4 Hz), power reserve 70 hours
- Strap: blue rubber with pin buckle or folding clasp, blue or grey synthetic fabric with pin buckle or folding clasp, stainless steel bracelet with fine adjustment mechanism
- Price: from £12,900 for fabric strap with pin buckle (RRP as of 4.4.2023)