The Seiko Turtle is back in black and it’s cooler than ever.

by James Buttery

Seiko?s logic is undeniably strong. In a bid to create ever more collectable pieces as fuel for the fervent army of Seiko collectors out there, the Japanese brand has clearly asked itself what it could do to imbue its ever-popular divers watches with even higher levels of cool. Dressing from head-to-toe in black usually does the trick when stepping out on the town and Seiko has now proved that the same applies to its Prospex collection with a black-coated trio of dive watches. Seiko has a more interesting narrative taking its inspiration from night-diving, which sounds entirely plausible too.
The limited edition series consists of two solar-powered quartz models – a time and date and a chronograph – and the model we?re really interested in, an automatic Turtle with day/date, the SRPC49K (£429).
Seiko aren’t releasing the total number they have made worldwide but they have told us it is a one-off production run and 400 pieces will be making their way to the UK. It is worth noting that there appears to be a near identical Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) only version of the Turtle, which was limited to 300 and quickly sold out.
While the two Solar models look handsome enough in their new black guise it is the Turtle that really shines, with an effective mix of matt and gloss surfaces on the caseband, case front and on the coin-edge of its unidirectional bezel...