Grand Seiko SBGA497

This piece is limited to 1,500 pieces worldwide.

In 2004, the Automatic Spring Drive was created – a groundbreaking innovation in a new automatic watch with one-second-a-day accuracy. It is a watch movement powered by a main spring with a regulator without an escapement, combining the beauty of the mechanical watch and the precision of electronic timekeeping. 2024 marks the 20th Anniversary since the automatic 9R Spring Drive Movement.

Spring Drive powered timepieces mark the smooth passing of time with their lack of juddering tick – designed to emulate the natural progression of one moment into the next.
‘The Nature of Time’ theme features prominently in Grand Seiko watch designs – a Japanese spirituality where each moment is a unique expression unveiled through light and shadow. The watchmakers’ pride in their surroundings is represented from engineering watch movements, to creating dials reflecting the beauty of Japanese nature.

The textured dial of this design emulates the iconic Grand Seiko ‘Snowflake’ watch. In the crisp, dry air, and when driven across the slopes by the wind, this snow has a special light and delicate quality that is captured in the subtly textured surface of the dial. The colour of the design is inspired by the rosy winter morning glow of sunrise over the Hotaka mountain peaks – near to Japan’s Shinshu Watch Studio, birthplace of Spring Drive. The dial gradation represents the changing of the scenery at different times throughout the day.

Built in a high-intensity, lightweight titanium case, the pink snowflake dial is accompanied by dual-curved sapphire crystal with an anti-reflective coating. It has razor-sharp silver-coloured second, minute and hour hands, along with a coloured power reserve hand and GS logo, which represent the morning sun.

Powered by an in-house 9R65 Spring Drive movement, visible through its glass exhibition case back, accurate to +/-1 second per day (+/-15 seconds per month) with a power reserve of 72 hours. The Spring Drive movement allows for an almost seamless glide of the second hand, whilst maintaining a high level of precision.

Every Grand Seiko features signature high standards of precision, durability and legibility, handcrafted in Japan by Takumi artisans.