Worn & Wound
Seiko Introduces a Trio of Updated Divers in the SPB Range
Big news from Seiko today, as the brand announces a follow up to their wildly popular SPB143 diver (and its many siblings). The new SPB453, SPB451, and SPB455 use the same 62MAS derived format but offer small changes in specs that make the new versions of the watch correspondingly more appealing. It’s not a revolutionary update in design or anything, but a series of small changes that should result in a better experience for just about everyone, and reinforces the idea that this watch, the “1966 Diver’s Re-Interpretation,” is the core diver in Seiko’s lineup and will be forever tinkered with in an almost Rolex kind of way. Let’s start with the big changes, which are actually quite small in a literally sense. The new references have been tidied up a bit in their dimensions and are slightly smaller in every dimension watch enthusiasts care about than their predecessors. The diameter is down half a millimeter to a clean 40mm, and the case height has been reduced to 13mm, which is a barely perceptible 0.2mm thinner than the SPB143. The lug to lug measurement is 46.4mm, which is a more noticeable 1.4mm shorter. The new case size is welcome, in my opinion. It’s not that the SPB143 wore too large or was too aggressively chunky, but for a diver like this a little extra refinement is a good thing. A skin diver style dive watch isn’t meant to be a behemoth on the wrist, but rather the ideal combination of wearability and performance for regular folks. Getting this ...
