The wristwatch is the male handbag: you can never have enough. Just when you think you’ve found your grail timepiece, the ne plus ultra of all your horological hopes and dreams, the end of your Ahab-like quest to find that one watch that has thus far eluded you, you catch yourself browsing Chrono24 and – huh, does that one come with box and papers?
So it was for me recently with the Seiko 6139 or, as it’s known to collectors, the “Pogue”. I’d first encountered this watch in passing when working on a piece about Grand Seiko for GQ. It had clearly lodged itself in my subconscious because when I scrolled past one online the other day it sent me down a Pogue rabbit hole and into an acquisitive mood. It just looks… excellent. I don’t mean stylish like a Royal Oak or ostentatious like a Day-Date. Nor does it look especially trendy – you could walk into Swatch tomorrow and pick something up that’s infinitely more directional. I mean simply that it seems so confident in its own oddities that you can’t help but fall for it. The colours are really out there – a strikingly vivid yellow sunburst dial with a bright red and blue bezel – yet the hint of tangerine in that yellow makes the whole effect beguiling rather than paintboxy. And then there’s the case. Seriously, check it out. How wonderfully 1970s is that?
But its throwback looks aren’t even the best thing about it: this watch is also a slice of history. In the early 1970s, Nasa astronaut Colonel William Pogue was assigned to crew the first US space station, Skylab. In testing, Pogue did not have access to a standard-issue Omega Speedmaster as these weren’t supplied to astronauts until nearer launch. As an alternative, he bought a Seiko 6139 – the brand’s first automatic chronograph. Pogue liked it so much that in November 1973, when his time came to blast off for Skylab, he packed his new Speedmaster but also took his beloved Seiko without seeking Nasa approval. The 6139 thus became the first automatic chronograph in space. “I had been using the Seiko for well over six months (perhaps over a year) and had found it very handy for timing engine burns,” he would later explain in a letter to watch enthusiast David Bruno. And, Pogue continued, “the self-winding mechanism worked fine in zero-G.”
Seiko manufactured this watch in a number of different colourways but it was the yellow dial model that had caught Pogue’s eye, earning this variant its now popular sobriquet. What’s more – and this is especially appealing for anybody who is forever scratching an itch for more watches – you can pick up a nice example for around £600.
Now, as we were saying: does this one come with box and papers?
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