Seiko Sea Lion DX - 1969 - Cushion Case Automatic - Charcoal Lattice Dial

By the end of the 1960s, Seiko had stopped behaving like an underdog. The company that timed the 1964 Tokyo Olympics had spent the decade announcing Japanese watchmaking to a skeptical world, and the mechanical watches it was turning out carried a quiet confidence the Swiss were only beginning to take seriously. In those years Seiko gave its sealed, water resistant watches a private language, a small menagerie of sea creatures pressed into the caseback: a sea horse, a dolphin, a silver wave, and the one engraved here, a sea lion. The sea lion was kept for the dressier of those watches, almost always day or day and date pieces, fitted with some of the stronger movements the company made and standing close to its respected Seikomatic line. It is one of the more enigmatic corners of vintage Seiko, a series collectors keep returning to precisely because so little of it was ever written down. This DX Sea Lion M88 dates to 1969, at the close of that confident decade.

The dial is deep charcoal, crossed by a fine gold grid of thin lines. At each hour sits a small faceted block of applied gold, angled to catch the light, with the hands cut to match. A calendar reads through two apertures, the day in English beside the Seiko signature and the date framed in polished gold at three o'clock, the DX mark and its small numeral six set just below the center. The dial is clean and original, the markers bright, under an acrylic crystal that carries the light surface scratches of its age and would freshen with a polish.

The case is a gold plated cushion, broad through the middle and softly squared at the corners, with the crown tucked down at four o'clock where the cuff keeps it out of the way. Its plating has aged honestly, holding across the flat of the case with the gold worn thin at the lug tips and along the edges, where more than half a century of wear has done its quiet work. The back is stainless steel, marked water proof and struck with the reference and the serial beside that same engraving. It arrives on an American gold tone expansion bracelet, a counter fitted band of its day rather than a Seiko original, the sort a jeweler would have sized on the spot.

Inside is Seiko's caliber 6106, here in its 25 jewel form. That number meant something in 1969. Most of Seiko's automatics of the period ran seventeen to twenty one jewels, and the 25 jewel grade sat among the better movements the company was fitting outside of Grand Seiko, carrying Diafix oil retention at the pivots that worked hardest, a refinement the cheaper version did without. The DX badge, Seiko's mark for Deluxe, said as much, for it was the Seiko 5 given more, the additions that counted being that higher jewel count and a hacking seconds hand that halts the instant the crown is drawn, so the watch can be set to the second. It runs at 21,600 beats an hour, takes its date from an inward press of the crown, and winds only from the motion of the wrist, with no hand winding, the way Seiko built these in the era. It shares its architecture with the 6139 that powered Seiko's first automatic chronographs and the 6105 beneath the company's dive watches, real pedigree for a movement once sold by the thousand.
The watch is running and keeping good time.

Terms: Please review all photos carefully as they are a part of the listing. This is a vintage timepiece. Accuracy, power reserve, and water resistance are not guaranteed. Vintage watches may require periodic service. Performance can vary with wear, temperature, and position.

I am happy to service any unserviced watch listed on the site, please inquire about service charges when purchasing.

All sales final.