So long as you’ve passed your 30th birthday, you can probably remember the days when you could walk around a flea market or a car boot sale and be in with an even chance of turning up a few old watches. If you were really lucky, you might even find one worth having, enjoy a bit of bartering with the seller and end up walking out with it on your wrist in exchange for a paltry sum of cash (remember that too?)
Back then, it was a relatively common occurrence to discover an interesting Seiko and they were almost invariably cheap – after all, they weren’t Swiss, were they? And, as everyone knew, only Swiss watches were any good, right?
Sadly for we bargain hunters, the double-edged sword that is the internet has all but put paid to such useful ignorance and it’s now highly unlikely that anyone with an old Seiko to sell wouldn’t google it first, discover its likely collectability and price it high.
And there are few Seiko models that the scenario is more applicable to than the now-celebrated Reference 6139-6002, more commonly known in its best, golden, egg-yolk-yellow form as the “Pogue” chronograph on account of one having been worn in space by astronaut Colonel William R Pogue during the Nasa Skylab 4 mission in 1973.
The expediency of the net negates the need to go into the history of the watch here (if you didn’t know about the Pogue already, you’ll have googled it by now) – and it has also destroyed the thrill of the chase for those of us who used to like the idea of stumbling across such a watch live rather than homing in on it virtually.
Yes, it’s great that I’ve just typed in “Seiko Pogue for sale” and 15 examples have instantly appeared. What’s not so great is that the prices range from around £500 to more than £2,000 and buying any one of them would, in one way or another, constitute a gamble. (Is it stolen? Is it original? Is it restored? Is it as good as it looks in the photos? Does it, er, work?)
Frankly, I can’t be bothered to embark on that potentially disappointing “journey”, especially now that Seiko has pulled the wraps off a brand-new watch that does a decent job of revisiting the Pogue aesthetic – and also comes with a box and guarantee but no scratches, dents or a previous owner’s dead skin – yet costs just £260.
One glance at the image of the lengthily named “Seiko Sports 5 Custom Watch Beatmaker 2021 Limited Edition” (available in August) will reveal that it’s not a faithful Pogue re-issue by any means.
It’s not even a chronograph and there are many significant detail differences to the two designs. But the winning combination of colours is sufficiently closely replicated to make the watch an acceptable alternative to the real thing and, being limited to 2,021 examples, it’s probably going to become collectable in its own right anyway.
The design was chosen as the winner of Seiko’s “Custom Watch Beatmaker” campaign in which participants were required to design a timepiece using five watch components found on the brand’s website, with the aim being that the most popular combination would make it into production.
Each design was paired with one of 32 pieces of music created by eight up-and-coming artists (hence the “Beatmaker” in the title) with this one ultimately being chosen from more than 48,000 designs after garnering 8.5 million of the 16m votes cast.
True, it could be seen as a pastiche. But if it scratches your Pogue itch, doesn’t break the bank and avoids the minefield of buying a vintage original online, well, why ever not?
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