About
About Spring & Dial
A reference site for Seiko and Japanese-domestic-market watches, built on published specifications and live prices rather than on claims you cannot check.
Who writes this
Stephen V.. An enthusiast who is genuinely into this. I read the manuals, compile the published specs, and do the math. No lab coat, no test bench, no timegrapher.
That framing is deliberate and it is the honest one. I am not a watchmaker, not a horologist, and I hold no credential in any of this. I have no test bench, no timegrapher and no owned units of the watches on this site. What I do is read the documentation carefully, transcribe the specifications correctly, do the arithmetic, and cite where each figure came from.
It would be easy to write something more impressive here. The category is full of it — two of the sites competing for these searches carry author claims about years of collecting and weeks of wear-testing per watch, offered without any way for a reader to verify them. Those claims are trivially falsifiable and, if untrue, are a deception rather than a flourish. I am not going to make one.
What we do
- Compile every published specification for a reference — case, lug-to-lug, thickness, lug width, crystal, rating, caliber — from manufacturer documentation
- Cite the standard behind a claim rather than just the number. “200 m, ISO 6425 rated” is a real claim; “200 m waterproof” is not one we would repeat
- Pull prices live and stamp them with the date they were checked, so a stale figure disappears rather than misleading you
- Show the arithmetic — price against specification, case dimensions against typical wrists, what each step up the ladder actually buys
- Write a skip-this on every pick, because a site that never recommends against anything is not recommending
What we do not do
We do not handle, wear, time or measure these watches, and we say so on every page rather than in small print. We do not estimate a figure the manufacturer has not published — where Seiko does not publish a lug-to-lug, our tables say so. We do not copy specifications from other watch sites, because that propagates their errors. And we do not make any claim that would require touching the watch: no accuracy measurements, no lume timings, no comfort judgments.
The methodology page sets all of this out in detail, including the order in which selection criteria are applied.
Why this site exists
Seiko coverage online is broad and shallow, and it goes stale. The reference guides people land on are frequently years old with no update date, prices are hand-typed and rot within months, and the specification most likely to decide whether a watch fits you — lug-to-lug — is usually absent entirely.
Meanwhile the questions people actually search have no good answers anywhere. NH35 versus 4R35 is argued endlessly in forums with nowhere authoritative to point. The J-suffix question is answered mostly with folklore. There is essentially no structured caliber-level reference material in this niche at all, which is why the calibers section exists and why it is the part of this site worth the most.
There are 38 pages here at launch, each written against a question people are genuinely asking rather than to fill a category.
Who publishes it
Spring & Dial is published by Type 5 Marketing LLC. The site is funded by affiliate commission on qualifying purchases and by nothing else — no paid placements, no sponsored rankings, no free units. The full disclosure is here and the independence policy is here.
Getting in touch
Corrections are genuinely welcome and they get made. If a figure on this site is wrong, email info@springanddial.com with the reference, the figure, and where the correct one is published. Material corrections are dated on the page.