Recently, I wrote about my latest acquisition being the NOS Planet Ocean James Bond. Well, a reader from Japan had got in touch with me if I was interested to take up a NOS Seiko Sportura Kinetic Limited Edition direct from a Japanese watch shop, and with warranty in tow. Apparently, there were 2 pieces- one being the stainless steel version with black dials, and the other being the DLC titanium version with orange dials. Both were limited editions, with the latter commanding a higher premium in prices.
I vaguely remembered these pieces released some 10 years ago or more, which were selling at circa RM10k (stainless steel) - RM18k (titanium); and my reaction back then was that while these watches were pretty avantgarde in the looks' department, they were too expensive to be invested upon being Seiko and further not being pure mechanical watches.
Well, more than 10 years have passed and I am a more learned WIS these days; so an offer for a NOS with warranty tickled my fancy. However, I also realised that the early days of the kinetic movement had produced some duds and it was going to be trying to send the watch back to Japan for warranty claims. Further, these were not watches that the average watchsmiths could worked on, so the ownership process could come with some challenges along the way.
So the question right now was... should I take the leap of faith and plunge into the unknown of these NOS kinetic movements? Looks-wise, I still think they looked as avantgarde as the day they were launched; although these days, you have Azimuth and their robotic looks so the wow factor of the Sportura Kinetic had been diluted to a certain extent over the decade.
I could really see a place for these watches in my humble collection.
The stainless steel version looks like this :
Car enthusiast, Jay Leno had the stainless steel piece and it was frequently seen on his car shows :
And the DLC titanium version looks like this :
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