King Seiko Watch 45-8010 Hi-Beat Superior Chronometer Officially Certified

SPECIFICATION

Reference : Seiko 45-8010
Movement : 4500
Age : March 1970
Case Size : 37mm
Case Thickness : 10mm
Lug to Lug : 41mm
Lugs : 18mm
Condition : used Seiko watch
Box & Papers : No
Case Material : Stainless steel
Warranty : 12-Months Warranty

POINTS TO MENTION

In great pre owned condition, with some light wear from use

• Case and bezel have some light marks and scratches
• Dial has 3 light shadows around the KS logo
• Fully serviced movement
  
• High Beat movement 36,000 BPH
  
• The gold medallion is in fantastic condition
  
• KS sign crown
  
• Paired with an unworn grey leather strap

This King Seiko 45-8010 features the manually wound, high beat (as marked on the dial) caliber 4500. As part of the famous 45~ series of King Seiko movements, the 4500 runs at 36,000 bph, or 5 Hz, which provides greater accuracy to the wearer.

The applied hour markers on the sunburst dial are beautiful and elegant , as is the handset. Both the markers and hands are executed without lume and instead the black inlay on the minute/hour hands which sits underneath a sweeping silver second hand with the hour marker silver and through its centre a single black stripe. The case is curved and polished with a polished bezel. One of our favorite details is the gold King Seiko medallion placed in the center of the case back, a testament to the quality of construction and design present in the watch.

A BIT OF TRIVIA

The inter-corporate competition between Grand Seiko and King Seiko in the 1960s and '70s is a story that has fascinated all who have heard it. At that point in time, Seiko had two factories to create watches. Grand Seiko was produced at the Suwa factory; King Seiko was produced at the Daini factory. The rationale between having these two separate factories was to promote internal competition in order to build the absolute best watches possible. This 1970 King Seiko is an excellent example of exactly that.

Caliber 45 was also the last hand assembled King Seiko movement as the models that came afterwards were built on automated production lines. Perhaps, this means that the 45KS has a little more connection in collector’s minds with the Daini Seikosha artisans more than subsequent models. It is also the one and only high beat movement from the Daini factory and was also their last purely hand-wound movement.

AA

The 45KS movement gave rise to another chronometer grade watch to follow on from the eariler King Seiko 4420-9990. By this time, the King Seiko chronometers were being independently certified by the Japan Chronometer Inspection Institute (JCII, established December 1968) to the same level as the old Swiss standards. At that time chronometer grade was defined to be a mean over five positions within -1.0 to +10.0 seconds/day which corresponded to Seiko’s internal ‘A’ grade accuracy. This independent certification lead Seiko to mark the dials with ‘Officially Certified'

Seiko also differentiated those watches that performed to the higher ‘AA’ accuracy grade which was aligned with the then Grand Seiko standard which since 1966 had been defined at -3 to +6 secs/day. Some 45-8010 examples met this higher ‘AA’ grade and were marked both on the dial and on the case back medallion with the words ‘Superior Chronometer’

OUR THOUGHTS

The King Seiko 45-8010 Hi-Beat Superior Chronometer Officially Certified is right up there with the best watches to ever come out of a Seiko factory. The accuracy, the design and the history are all reasons why this KS will not hang around for long, we have brought this KS from the past to the present for you can take on into the future.