If you haven’t yet read Part I, find the full article right here. This year, to mark its 60th anniversary, Grand Seiko has introduced two new movements, representing each of the brand’s two pillars: Calibre 9RA5 is a Spring Drive movement while Calibre 9SA5 is a traditional mechanical movement. These are entirely new movements, with every element developed and produced in-house and designed to last for decades as the foundation for a whole new generation of watches. To understand their place in the Grand Seiko story, let’s look at the genesis of each in turn. In Part I we traced the genesis of Calibre 9SA5, and here we look at the evolution of Grand Seiko’s Spring Drive movements, culminating in this year’s new calibre. To understand the sequence of movement launches better, it’s worth noting that Calibre numbers don’t follow chronological order: for example, the first 2004 Spring Drive movement, Calibre 9R65, preceded Calibre 9R01 by 12 years. What is Spring Drive? Unique in watchmaking, the Spring Drive system merges the polarised worlds of electronic movements (powered by a quartz battery) and their mechanical counterparts (where the mainspring provides an autonomous power source). In the late 1970s, a Seiko engineer, Yoshikazu…
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