Seiko drop a LOT of watches at Basel. It’s like a candy store, with everything from super-hot limited editions, to Prospex, to Presage. All there in front of you. And I’m sure I only see a fraction of what’s on offer. It can be overwhelming. But even so, a few watches stand out, and they’re not always the ones you expect. For me, one of those watches was the SPB049J, a sober time-and-date tonneau with a classical dial in enamel. Now, a tonneau, or barrel-shaped case, is relatively uncommon, and can be hard to get right. They tend to veer either to the very sporty, or, in this instance, the very traditional. But something about this watch just works. The dial is, as you’d expect from enamel, light and lustrous, the black printed Roman numerals and text is wonderfully crisp, the ideal backdrop for the leaf-shaped blued steel hands and that seconds hand, with its crescent-moon tipped counterweight. They’re hands I’d happily look at all day long. The only slight jarring note in the dial design is the printed square around the date aperture, which is quite roughly finished around the edges. I don’t mind the border per se, but…
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