I have never felt any attraction for Seiko watches. Being a vintage watch amateur, I do like some of the older pieces, and I recognize the importance of the brand for the watch world. It is a solid brand that has always made innovative and quality watches. So I had no reason in the world to ever get a Seiko Alpinist Hodinkee SPB089.

At one point I tried so hard to want to buy a seiko, that I searched high and low to find one that I would truly enjoy, even letting myself get influenced by the watchfam for that mission.

And so I convinced myself that the Alpinist was going to be it. 39mm case, modern yet classical look, cool complication with the inner rotating ring which gives you geographic direction according to the position of the sun, automatic movement, double crowns…. BUT I find that green dial absolutely horrendous.

You see I am pale skin with blue eyes and pink cheeks. I have roughly the same ability to tan as Casper the friendly ghost. Green is a color that makes me look very ill when worn. I look sexy in blue though.

Thankfully Seiko teamed up with Hodinkee early 2019 and came up with a special edition Seiko Alpinist Hodinkee SPB089 with blue dial. Perfect! I had to find one second hand as the limited edition was all sold out. The watch is nearly double the price now! Reaching over 1000€ second hand for a 600€ watch… what the heck, I bought it.

I must say the general finish and quality of the watch is great. The blue dial is stunning and there are tons of nice details.

The leather strap though… just awful. Stiff and mild quality. I wore mine on a nice tan leather strap I had in stock.

But the most awful thing about this Seiko Alpinist Hodinkee SPB089 is the inner rotating ring, which turns with the second crown at 4 o’clock. It is so soft that it moves by itself just by wearing the watch. It never stays in place. Every time I looked at the watch all I could see was the very slightly misaligned triangle… end of the story: SOLD