On the 6159-7010, a titanium shroud, coated in ceramic, circles the bezel, providing an extra degree of protection from having the essential timing bezel jostled during a dive. The dominant design feature of the Grandfather Tuna and the watches that followed it is, without a doubt, the shrouded case design. Introduced in 1975, the “Tuna” was unlike anything else Seiko had ever produced, distinctively styled, but also paving the way for a long series of tech-forward designs featuring some of Seiko’s most interesting movements. Among the most intriguing dive watches introduced during this time was the Seiko 6159-7010, the so-called “Grandfather Tuna.” This milestone timepiece was developed in response to a now-famous letter from a professional diver expressing a need for a true diver’s watch that could withstand the conditions and shock that it would be exposed to under deep water conditions and activity. Highly specialized watches with novel features began to hit the market, and they didn’t look much at all like the divers that popularized the genre just a decade before. In the 1970s, as dive watches were becoming more common among the general public and manufacturing capabilities continued to advance, watch design took many unique turns. Their unique shape is among the most distinctive in the sports watch landscape, and has morphed from ugly duckling to something of a style icon in a few short decades. These unique dive watches have been a cult favorite for decades, while also serving as a lab of sorts for some of Seiko’s most ingenious technology. Today brings us to the final chapter in our series: Seiko’s shrouded divers. In this three part series, we’ll take a look at the histories of three distinct dive watch families under the Seiko umbrella - timepieces so iconic and treasured by watch aficionados that many have their own, unofficial nicknames - and track their evolution to today’s most modern, tech-forward, Prospex iterations.
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