*** MMFF Friday the 29th of October 2021 ***

[tribe125]

Could well be. I am always willing to learn. I am not a fanatic. Not completely convinced by those either, not even because they both appear to be redials.

Both pictures are from the Grand Seiko website, and I guess the watches are in Seiko’s museum.

[Henry Krinkle]

Both pictures are from the Grand Seiko website, and I guess the watches are in Seiko’s museum.

Huh... poorish dials, at least in those photos.

When I see this


Attachment 112291

or this

Attachment 112292
or this

Attachment 112293

or this

Attachment 112294

or any one of dozens of other GS, especially from the era when Shawkey wrote that, I don't see this



I see this

P3010150 by Hank Blanc, on Flickr

roughly 80% of all the other Golden Horse model released in the past 60+ years and ofcoursea few very specific Patek References, though they don't have the Golden Horse case shape.

Was Rado the firstwatchmaker to make a watch like this? No. Was it one of the biggest selling watches in Japan for nearly a decade before Seiko designed the specific watch Shawkey was referring to? Yes. Was the GH near ubiquitous there? Yes. Is it reasonable for someone to assert that the Horse models had aboslutely no influence upon Seiko and therfore the startling similarities between decades oldRados and numerous modelsof GS is simply a case of parallel evolution? One might suggest that by implying that you might be guilty of exactly what you've accused Shawkey of being. A well respected man who is being a bit partial and fanciful.

The truth is almost certainly somewhere in between.

[tribe125]

All I’ve said is that ‘Seiko style’ and the Golden Horse have a common ancestor in the Calatrava, which seems self-evident. There are many other watches from many other makers that have the same ancestry.

Naturally, these children and grandchildren can have a family resemblance. And that’s really all we can say with any certainty.

Your first four attachments don’t show up for me. They may have included the first Grand Seiko and the second generation Grand Seikos below -








The Calatrava genes look pretty dominant in the first one.

[Henry Krinkle]

All I’ve said is that ‘Seiko style’ and the Golden Horse have a common ancestor in the Calatrava, which seems self-evident. There are many other watches from many other makers that have the same ancestry.

Naturally, these children and grandchildren can have a family resemblance. And that’s really all we can say with any certainty.

Your first four attachments don’t show up for me. They may have included the first Grand Seiko and the second generation Grand Seikos below -








The Calatrava genes look pretty dominant in the first one.

Coupled with the Green Horse case in the second and third you've posted and in so many other GS.

It's hardly relevant that I repost them. They are other examples of GS with the "Calatrava" dial and a Green Horse case, equalling another watch that looks startlingly like almost every Green Horse ever.

The Green Horse/Calatrava genes look pretty dominant in every one of the examples I have shown. It's really alright if one of the finer watch brands in the world borrowed from an inferior one. It does not cheapen GS in any way.

[Henry Krinkle]

The Calatrava genes look pretty dominant in the first one.

Super valid question; Why do you call it a Calatrava dial? Are you exactly 100% certain that PP designed it first? Can you be absolutely certain that no PP employee ever saw one similar elsewhere? As the Five Things guy you know better than most that many horological historical facts aren't always fact.

[tribe125]

As it happens, one of the Five Things was about the designer of the Calatrava -

• Who was David Penney? The internet doesn’t seem to know. Think of a Bauhaus watch, and you might think of the Nomos Tangente, which is a copy of watches made by Stowa and Lange in the 1930s. They had the same dial catalogue on their shelves, and the designer is unknown. You might think of the Max Bill, and you’d be in the right place at the wrong time. But the greatest Bauhaus watch of all is the Patek Philippe Calatrava. It might not look like a Bauhaus design icon from the 1930s, but that’s because everyone has copied it, from Switzerland to Seiko. It was avant-garde when new, it saved the company, and the original model was made unchanged for forty years. The Calatrava was designed by Englishman David Penney, but who was David Penney, and how did he come to be designing watches for Patek Philippe? The internet doesn’t seem to know.

This was the first Calatrava, released in 1932

I never did discover who David Penney was. The watch histories agree about the designer, and most say something like this about the design -

Often copied, never bettered

And so the Calatrava’s pared-down perfection suited the austerity of the era, and its look has never really gone out of fashion. It’s spawned no end of imitations, becoming the most copied watch design ever.

It’s been common currency, from the 1930s to now, to talk about ‘Calatrava style’.

[Henry Krinkle]

As it happens, one of the Five Things was about the designer of the Calatrava -

• Who was David Penney? The internet doesn’t seem to know. Think of a Bauhaus watch, and you might think of the Nomos Tangente, which is a copy of watches made by Stowa and Lange in the 1930s. They had the same dial catalogue on their shelves, and the designer is unknown. You might think of the Max Bill, and you’d be in the right place at the wrong time. But the greatest Bauhaus watch of all is the Patek Philippe Calatrava. It might not look like a Bauhaus design icon from the 1930s, but that’s because everyone has copied it, from Switzerland to Seiko. It was avant-garde when new, it saved the company, and the original model was made unchanged for forty years. The Calatrava was designed by Englishman David Penney, but who was David Penney, and how did he come to be designing watches for Patek Philippe? The internet doesn’t seem to know.

This was the first Calatrava, released in 1932

I never did discover who David Penney was. The watch histories agree about the designer, and most say something like this about the design -

Often copied, never bettered

And so the Calatrava’s pared-down perfection suited the austerity of the era, and its look has never really gone out of fashion. It’s spawned no end of imitations, becoming the most copied watch design ever.

It’s been common currency, from the 1930s to now, to talk about ‘Calatrava style’.

Fair enough and good to know.

Now, about pairing that dial with a slightly uncommon case shape to achieve a series of watches that look startlingly like the nicest Rado Horses ever...

[tribe125]

To be honest, I don’t think I’m sufficiently well-informed to talk about cases, and profile pictures can be hard to come by.

Here’s the first Grand Seiko in profile -





And then this one from a couple of years later -





Quite different, and there are other variants too.

The GS designer was Taro Tanaka, who talked about Seiko’s ‘Grammar of Design’. I confess I glaze over a bit with exposition of that sort, but here’s something about Tanaka -

https://wornandwound.com/art-time-ta...rammar-design/

He seemed to like facets and reflected light, but to my untutored eye, GS cases seem always to have come in two flavours - classic and (surprisingly) angular. There’s variety in all eras.

Like I say, I’ve never paid great attention to cases, beyond ‘like’ and ‘don’t like’.