Well now that the floodgates have been opened for this year, what with the purchase of my Seiko Kinetic SKA371P – at a very reasonable price (he rationalised deeply) – I’ve been eyeing up a few pieces which may feature as the next addiction to the collection. That was a deliberate malapropism, just in case you were wondering.

There are many excellent Seiko divers’ watches which have caught my attention. I’m in the mood for quartz, rather than automatic, as I appreciate the accuracy and low cost which they offer. This narrows the field somewhat, as the vast majority of Seiko, my current favourite brand, divers’, my all time favourite style, are mechanical automatics. They range from the popular, inexpensive (about £120) but inaccurate and not conventionally attractive “Orange Monster”:

to the far more attractive and expensive Seiko Marine Master 300 (SBDX001) at 10x the cost of the above:

But since both of these are automatics – mechanical as opposed to quartz-  and so not quite what I’m looking for at the moment, my gaze has fallen on some Seiko quartz models.

First up is the SBCM023, a HEQ (High End Quartz) diver which despite it’s rather plain looks has some very interesting features.

It’s quartz crystal considers its temperature, and adjusts its oscillations to improve its accuracy which runs at about +/- 20 seconds or better a year. In comparison, a standard quartz will deviate by that amount each month. The Orange Monster will be that (in)accurate a day. The SBCM023 also features a perpetual calendar, so the date will adjust itself for leap years and months with less than 31 days. Sadly, you do have to adjust for leap seconds manually. The battery is good for 10 years. Finally unlike the other divers’ here, and the last one on my list, it’s a moderately sized watch and does not multi-function as diver’s ballast. Sadly only obtainable from Japan, this is around the £200 mark, which is great value given it’s feature set.

The final divers’ watch is the Seiko Tuna (SBBN015) so called because it looks like a tin of tuna on a strap.

This is a “shrouded” diver as the metal shroud protects the timing bezel from accidental movement while diving. In the real world, above water, it’s more than likely a scratch magnet. Still the dial is lovely, the lume is by all accounts superb, as is the robustly, specifically designed quartz movement and the high quality bracelet. Yours (or mine) for £700 from Japan.

Thing is, I already have two divers’ watches – my Rolex and my new Seiko – the first an automatic and the second a kinetic quartz. I’m also trying to not spend a fortune on watches, or rather I want great value for money and something slightly different to my current crop of divers’ and G-Shocks.

So the current prime candidate is a Precista PRS-10.

This is a small but rugged quartz based on watches issued to British miltary forces over the years.

Roll on pay-day… although this does give me a couple of weeks to look for something else…..