Seiko "World Time" - A 6117-6400 from 1970

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SOLD March 2015
This little gem is a very recent acquisition, coming my way via Ebay and at what I consider to be a very reasonable price. In fact, when I won the auction I must admit to being a bit concerned as to what I'd actually bought, considering that final low price.

But any worries were put to rest when the watch arrived and I was very happy to remove the case-back and find a pristine 6117 17-jewel movement tucked away inside a perfectly clean interior.

The watch is 100% original other than the crystal (acrylic) and left the factory in February of 1970 - being the 274th. on the production line.

The dial is almost unblemished, displaying just a couple of spots under magnification. When viewed by my naked eye they are almost invisible......but then my eyesight is pretty blurry unless I wear my glasses!

As the name implies, this is a timepiece which allows the wearer to see what time it is in various major cities across the globe.
This is done by rotating the "city ring" or time zone (the one with the light blue and black names on it) where you are located via the crown in its normal un-pulled position.

The idea is to then line up your city/time zone with the red hand (which moves once around the dial in 24 hours) and then the time at any other location  - including GMT - can be determined quite readily by reading off the time opposite that city or time-zone.

This is a different arrangement to that used on Seiko's later 6117-6409 "Navigator", where the 24-hour internal bezel is moved so that GMT (or the local time at any place on earth, so long as you know it to start with) can be monitored by aligning that time with the red hand.

So the "World Time" 6117 was more for the international traveller who jetted across several time-zones to various locations whereas its "Navigator" cousin was aimed at those who wanted time at two locations - theirs and somewhere else in a different zone.

In addition to the 4 hands (sweep second, minute, hour and 24-hour) the dial displays a date-only window at the traditional 3-position.

The case is crafted from stainless steel, with the crown slightly inset at the 4-position.
Case-back is also stainless steel, as is the attractive and very comfortable folded-link bracelet, which tapers from its connections with the case to a slightly narrower width at the clasp, which is signed.

In the few days that I've been wearing this watch I have found it to be very accurate, gaining less than 30 seconds over that period of time.
It runs beautifully, looks great and is a very nice example of another timepiece from Seiko's great 1970s range.