The Seiko Sea Urchin – Ref: SNZF17/15

Firstly I’ll start by saying, if you’ve got £7,500 to spend and you’re looking for a diver’s watch, you’ve come to the wrong place. Chances are you’ve already set your sights on the Rolex Oyster Perpetual Submariner, a legend in it's own right. Since its conception in 1953 the Submariner has been considered the grail for collectors and posers alike, particularly those with a penchant for the James Bond saga.

Like all great icons the Submariner's design has been, for want of a better term, ripped off by just about every watch manufacture going. You’ll find a subtle (or in the case of Invicta Watches less subtle) nod to the Submariner on almost every modern diver’s watch to date. But hey, why mess with a winning formula? Regardless of it’s reference number, the Rolex Submariner remains a Hall of Famer in every sense.

Which brings me neatly on to the Seiko SNZF17, or its Pepsi equivalent the SNZF15. There’s no doubt the aptly nicknamed Sea Urchin has drawn inspiration from the grail itself. But please don’t be fooled, this is no cheap Submariner replica desperately attempting to be mistaken for the real thing, ultimately tarnished by a skewed Rolex logo and a quartz movement. The Seiko Urchin combines the impeccable DNA of a Submariner with a light sprinkling of Seiko 5 Sports charm, throw in a bullet proof Seiko 7S36 automatic movement, a beautifully finished case, and arguably its most attractive feature, a sub £190 price tag.

If you needed a comparison, here’s one I prepared earlier, the infamous Volkswagen Golf GTI. The blueprints of a race car, with the affordability and everyday practicality that you’d expect from the German Car Giant. You can, and quite frankly should, wear this watch every day. Don’t get me wrong, it wouldn’t look out of place in an expensive cherry-wood case on the mantel piece only to come out on a special occasion, but would that existence really be fair to the Urchin? No, this is a tool watch, made to be worn, scuffed, submerged, and ultimately passed to the next generation if it’s still running.

At this point I’m not going to reel of a list of specs and figures for the SNZF, that information is widely available on the internet, and if you’ve kept reading this far I’m guessing it’ll be your next Google search. What I will say is this, for the price the Sea Urchin is very, very, hard to top. Seiko offer some fantastic entry-level automatic dive watches, and none more so than this well engineered, well priced, well equipped time piece, which looks every bit the part. It’s always hard to find a reason not to throw the Urchin on in the morning, no fuss.

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It’s nice yeah, but why is it called the Sea Urchin?

When Seiko watches reach a certain level of cult status they will, more often than not, end up with a nickname assigned by the community. Most of the time these are pretty obvious. The Tuna, Monster and Sumo all have an uncanny resemblance to their namesake. The Urchin, however, is a little more tenuous. I’ll let you decide for yourself, but at a push, if you squint, there are certain features the SNZF shares with this spiny, globular, marine creature, right? I prefer my version, it’s because the Sea Urchin (in both cases) is a no nonsense spikey little bastard, built for purpose, nothing more, nothing less.

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What’s the difference between the SNZF17 & SNZF15, and which should I buy?

Both are identical apart from the color of the dial and bezel insert. The SNZF15 has a sharp blue dial combined with the iconic Pepsi bezel, where as the SNZF17 is the more classic black on black look. Buy both, that’s what I did, and you wouldn't do that with a £7,500 watch.

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That’s it for this installment, if I haven’t convinced you by now to pull the trigger on a Seiko Sea Urchin, well quite frankly you’re a lunatic and you’d be better off buying yourself an Apple Watch.

Truthfully I have no idea when the next article is coming, but if you liked this one let me know.

The Urchin Report