Editor’s Note:

Most GMT+9 blog readers probably know Kohei Saito as a prominent Seiko collector and moderator of the TimeZone Seiko Forum. What many may not realize is Kohei is a highly respected collector of Swiss watches too.

Kohei’s vast knowledge of horology enables him to discuss various iterations of Lemania 5100-based watches just as comfortably as debating the superiority of vintage Seiko Lord Marvels over early Grand Seikos. Being a man of many interests, Kohei is also a vintage car aficionado and moderates the TimeZone Automotive Forum. I have long felt a kinship to Kohei as our horological interests are quite similar. Like Kohei, I’m a fan of Lemania 5100-based watches and also a Minerva collector in a past life, so it was understandably a pleasure to be given the opportunity to interview him for GMT+9.

Kohei, I know you have an extensive collection of both Swiss and Seikos. Did you start out collecting Seiko first or Swiss?

Hi Pete. I was primarily collecting Swiss watches. Seikos are always around me since I lived in Japan for most of my teenage days. My first watch was Seiko, and I have owned several ever since. My mother went to Europe in the ’70s and brought back a Bucherer for me and another Rolex for Dad. This did change my perspective on watches quite a bit, but I still collected Seikos among the Swiss watches. Seiko perhaps is stamped onto my DNA.

It took awhile for TimeZone to start up a Seiko brand forum, and I must admit, I was shocked when TimeZone started it. I never thought TimeZone would look at Seiko as a brand worthy of its own forum. Was there anything in particular that motivated TimeZone to create a Seiko forum, or was it simply a case of you or James Dowling convincing them that it would be a good idea?

It was my idea, and I wanted to do this for a long time. Since many owner changes occurred over the years, it took us long times until we were ready to expand into more brand forums. Seiko was always a popular brand at TimeZone anyway, but I patiently waited for the forum to actually happen.

Do you have a favorite Swiss brand or Swiss movement that you like, and if so, why?

I like Girard-Perregaux. They have similar history as Seiko, but as you know, I do collect just about any brand of watches I like. When you collect watches, you do go through changes. For example, Frey era Minerva was one of my favorite brands in the past. I wanted to own some particular models for a long time because I couldn’t buy them all when they were available, and since finally I collected them all, I decided to move on and find another series of watches by other manufacturers.

Minerva Limited Edition Avus Chronographs

I go by the watches themselves and may not be loyal to the certain brands. Since I’ve been collecting watches for a long time, I do have this luxury and I don’t want to be restricted by it. Also, setting the goal as “buy the one I want” is the very basis of watch collecting for many people. And as a moderator of TimeZone, I can’t talk about them much unless I spent money like everybody else does and own them first.

That’s interesting that you collect Girard-Perregaux as I think they have many similarities to Seiko. They both are manufacturers, they both are somewhat underrated, and like Seiko, I think Girard-Perregaux was heavily into the timing competitions back in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. What about Seiko, do you have a favorite Seiko or Seiko movement?

I do collect King Seikos. They were the orphans behind the big brother Grand Seiko sharing many details with GS including the movement, but they were sold at affordable prices. I have about 15 of them, including the first model, and here’s one that I bought from you a long time ago.

King Seiko 4502 Handwind Chronometer

Also vintage GS’s and Seikomatics are still an ongoing project for me to collect, but my most favorite line is the Lord Marvels. Seiko hand picked base movements, polished and tweaked them to achieve better accuracy. Lord Marvels were sold as the very first serious high-end (Seiko) watch before the introduction of the Grand Seiko.

I’m very fortunate to own this first example (has a four-digit serial number) Lord Marvel in a solid 18K case. Not sure how many of them were made and sold, but only a few survive today. I think it’s the best Seiko I ever owned so far. It’s a much better watch than the Grand Seiko first model IMHO, even though GS first model was similar to the Crown-based Lord Marvels, sharing the same movements. We can talk about Crown-based Lord Marvels some day, because I also have many of them.

Here’s the four-digit early movement I’m talking about.

These two are from my other Lord Marvels in gold filled cases. They have later production movements. You can tell by the six-digit serial numbers.

Do you collect any other Japanese watches such as Ricoh, Orient or Citizen?

I have some Citizens and Takano/Ricohs. They made very interesting watches and I’m aware of models such as the “Jet” automatics, X-8 Chronomaster, Cosmotron electrics, and export only Worldtimers etc., but I’m not collecting them, I can’t spread my range too wide.

What sort of hobbies do you have outside of watches. I know you moderate the TimeZone Automobile Forum, so I’m guessing maybe you like Japanese cars?

I collect vintage British cars. Although I do not enjoy working on them as much as I used to, I still love to drive them. I used to vintage race with them too. Here’s one of them, a ‘67 Aston Martin DB6 Vantage.

TimeZone, being the number one watch forum in the world, has developed a relationship with Seiko. Do you know if Seiko reads the TimeZone forum? If they do, do you think that their designs have been influenced by posts they read on TimeZone?

They do read quite often, and I e-mail or call them often as well. We are not official Seiko forum, but we do have great relationships with them. They treated us like an official forum by becoming a banner sponsor and sending us a number of invites to their factory in Japan. This will continue this year and the years to come.

As far as influencing of the designs goes, I’m not in the position to say and it’s totally up to them. I do like to think we do influence them as our community does chip in here and there, but I hate to think of the forum as a source of influence to the manufacturer; to me, that is a very over-rating thought.

I have noticed that you have participated in some TimeZone get togethers. Have you been able to share some Seikos with collectors that normally don’t think of the Seiko brand, and if so, have you changed any Swiss collectors’ perceptions of Seiko?

One of the goals of opening up TZ Seiko forum was to raise the awareness of Seiko as a manufacture, a brand that has always made high end watches. That was on my first line on my early proposal to start a Seiko forum. We do often talk about their introduction level watches such as Seiko 5s and pers watches, but being able to educate the communities with another level of Seikos has always been part of TimeZone’s goal to begin with in creating the Seiko forum.

For the get togethers, it is just like the planting of the seed. I do bring Seikos often. Many people have never seen the high end stuff from Seiko before. But again, choosing of Seiko over the popular Swiss brands are totally up their decisions and I can’t force to change that instantly.

Seiko is just now starting to sell more high-end watches worldwide. Do you know or think that one day we may be able to buy a Grand Seiko in the USA?

I’m not a businessman, and never been involved with the management field before. I can only speculate on things. But again, that’s up to Seiko. Now they have selected dealers who are selling Spring Drives throughout the world. Perhaps the ground work has been done maybe to bring in some “Japan only” models as limited editions, but part of the problems are their production capabilities. They (Seiko) can not supply enough high end Seikos for the world.

In the last year, Seiko launched a Seiko store in Paris. Grand Seikos are selling there as an experiment. If we see a similar factory-direct boutique here in the States, I would think adding to the line up should be a natural choice.

And for our last question Kohei, what are you wearing today?

Audemars Piguet Edward Piguet chronograph in a WG case. I have to own decent high-end watches to know what it is about before making suggestions about Seiko. Don’t you think?

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 6th, 2007 at 3:25 am and is filed under Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.