So I went to my dealer yesterday to pick up my brother’s Zodiac, which I was having serviced. My guy told me he had something interesting to show me, and took me back to his office, and with the flourish of a magician, removed a gray cloth from a watch tray, revealing a watch I never thought I would see in real life.
The day before, he had met with the CEO of Seiko NA, who was on his way to the NY boutique with this country’s allocation of Credor watches for the year. That would be a total of four—one of each model they make. My guy knew I was interested in the Eichii II, but had never seen one, and managed to convince them to leave it with him so I could look at it. And he decided it would be a great surprise—boy was he right. It is truly an amazing watch, one that several of you know I have admired through pictures for a long time. Then he told me that if I wanted it, I could have it—it would never finish its trip to the NY boutique. We worked out a deal (yes, I’ve done another major culling down now), and I picked it up today.
This is a watch that lots of people, even watch lovers, just don’t get. But I do—it is the epitome of beauty through simplicity and craftsmanship IMO. They only make 20 per year, and apparently only one per year makes it over to the US, and usually it’s already spoken for. It was the most amazing luck that I was able to do this (and kudos to my dealer).
For those of you who don’t know the watch, the basics are 39mm x 10.3mm platinum case (crown and deployant are also platinum), spring drive manual wind 7R14 movement finished to the hilt, and a 60 hour power reserve thanks to a patented torque return system that harnesses excess torque when the mainspring is fully wound.
The dial is porcelain, made locally near Seiko’s Micro Artist Studio where Credors are made. The indices, and the Credor name are painted by hand by one artist. The process demands enough concentration that only one dial can be done in a day. The movement is finished with the same care as Philippe Dufour uses—in fact, Dufour has said the Eichii II is fabulous in the finishing department, and a picture of M. Dufour hangs in the Micro Artist Studio as inspiration. Credor goes to the length of using the same wooden sticks from the same type of tree that Dufour uses to do the final finishing. That’s right, they do it by rubbing wooden sticks repeatedly on the bridges!
OK, enough words, let’s see some pictures. They can't do justice to the depth of dial, the richness of the porcelain, and the incredible color match between the indices, hands and even the strap. Also, as you can see, it looks different in different lighting.
As you can see, everything that is extraneous has been eliminated, so you're left with markers, the Credor name, hours, minutes and seconds hand, and a tiny "Japan" and movement model number at the very bottom.
My crappy $5 macro camera can't do justice to the dial (or the movement, really), but if you look at this shot of the logo, you can see it was hand painted--compare the slight differences in the two "r's." The lines on the indices might show some irregularities if I had a better lens.
Part 2 coming up.