Teddy Baldassarre
The Seiko King Turtle: Does This Budget-Friendly Diver Reign Supreme?
Japan’s Seiko has never been shy about going bold and unconventional with its designs, especially when it comes to its divers’ watches, a genre in which the brand has been an undisputed industry pioneer since the 1960s. One of its most off-the-wall and yet most enduringly popular designs is the so-called Turtle, which made its debut in the 1970s and has undergone a successful renaissance here in the 21st Century as part of Seiko’s rugged and sport-centric Prospex line. At the pinnacle of the Turtle sub-family, in terms of luxurious finishing and dominant wrist presence, is the grandly named King Turtle, best represented by the Refs. SRPE03 and SRPE05 released in 2019. Here’s what you should know about them. By the time this watch’s ancestors made their debut, Seiko had already produced some highly unusual, unexpectedly iconic, and cleverly nicknamed dive watches, like the Ref. 6159 “Tuna” (for its chunky tuna-can-like case shape) and the Ref. 6105 “Captain Willard” (thanks to its being famously worn by Martin Sheen’s character in Apocalypse Now.) The “Turtle” nickname first surfaced in 1976, applied to the References 6306 and 6309 - the former, made for the Japanese market, and the latter, for international customers. These watches were notable for their cushion-shaped cases with softly rounded lugs, which brought to mind the silhouette of a turtle when viewed from above. The Turtle gained a modicum of pop-culture visibility when actor Ed Harri...
