Worn & Wound Celebrates 10 Years With A Limited Edition Seiko 5

February 17, 2022

Worn & Wound was born in Brooklyn exactly a decade ago. And to celebrate the company's 10-year anniversary, they've teamed up with Seiko to introduce a 1,000-piece limited edition that updates and refreshes the look and feel of the Seiko 5 SNK803, a certifiable classic of late-aughts, early-2010s accessible watchmaking. Worn & Wound was an early innovator in digital media and e-commerce for the watch industry, adopting a beat that was too often ignored: value-driven timepieces from brands both big and small.?The Brooklyn-based company's existence coincided with the rise of "microbrands," and they also helped encourage a new generation of watch enthusiasts to care about quality design and mechanics during their collecting journey, even if operating on a budget. In 2015, Worn & Wound introduced the Windup Watch Fair, a three-day, in-person watch fair that is now one of the most anticipated watch events in the United States each year and has expanded to additional cities outside New York. A few years after that, in 2018, the Windup Watch Shop was launched as an Authorized Retailer for new watches from brands like Fortis, Laco, Junghans, Marathon, and more, as well as a home for watch straps, accessories, and tools. Believe it or not, the North American watch media landscape consists of a relatively small group of individuals; it's hard not to get excited when one of our external colleagues takes a risk and does something cool. The Seiko SNK803 inspired the new Seiko 5 Sports Worn & Wound 10th Anniversary Limited Edition. Image, James Stacey. The Seiko 5 Sports Worn & Wound 10th Anniversary Limited Edition is a commemoration of exactly that C?the risk taken by founders Zach Weiss, Blake Malin, and James Helms in 2011, starting a new online platform dedicated to treating the affordable world of watchmaking with respect. Their knowledge-based approach has rightfully won them readers, customers, and supporters around the world. The new watch is placed within the current-gen Seiko 5 Sports collection C?which James put through the wringer a few years back C?and utilizes the aviation-inspired design language that Seiko reintroduced late last year. The stainless steel case measures a wearable 39.4mm 13.2mm, and the new-gen, self-winding caliber 4R36 features hacking seconds and manual winding capability. The Seiko 5 Sports Worn & Wound 10th Anniversary Limited Edition riffs on a watch that was the subject of the second review ever published by Worn & Wound, on the Seiko 5 SNK803. (Their first review was on the Tsovet SVT-FW44 C what else?) The Worn & Wound team, led by Chief Creative Officer Weiss, didn't settle for an explicit reissue of the SNK803; instead, they opted for the Seiko 5 they always wanted to create. The dial is split into an outer khaki ring with a structural waffle-weave texture and a 60-minute scale with Arabic numerals marking five minutes. The inner circle is metallic grey with a sunburst finish, a 12-hour display, and the applied Seiko wordmark and printed Seiko 5 Sports logo. A brick-red triangle is positioned precisely at 12 o'clock on the outer segment, signaling the atypical pilots' watch aesthetic.?Finally, the day/date aperture at three o'clock includes a special feature C?a day wheel that alternates between English and Kanji, an inside-baseball inclusion that winks at the well-documented fascination watch collectors have with bilingual date wheels. Left to right: The Seiko SNK803; the Seiko 5 Sports Worn & Wound 10th Anniversary Limited Edition; and the Seiko SNK809. The caseback of the Seiko 5 Sports Worn & Wound 10th Anniversary Limited Edition is individually numbered up to 1,000 pieces and features the Worn & Wound logo printed on the display caseback, as well as two commemorative statements ("Seiko 5 Sports for Worn & Wound" and "Celebrating 10 Years of Worn & Wound") around the edge. Delivered inside a special Worn & Wound-designed box, the Seiko 5 Sports Worn & Wound 10th Anniversary Limited Edition comes on a green nylon textile two-piece strap and a unique ADPT US-Made Mil-Strap in Admiralty Grey that features a dark red stitch and label to complement the red accents on the watch's dial. The lugs are drilled which will make swapping straps as simple as can be.? Priced at a very fair $345, the Seiko 5 Sports Worn & Wound 10th Anniversary Limited Edition will be available exclusively at the Windup Watch Shop later this evening, at precisely 7:00 PM ET, February 17, 2022; watches will ship the first week of March. Unfortunately for our international friends, it looks like availability is restricted to U.S.-based customers. What We Think Do you remember your first Seiko??It's a rite of passage for so many of today's watch lovers. Mine was the all-time classic SKX009K1 with a red-and-blue bezel (yes, I'm basic C?come @ me). But I can imagine for hundreds C?if not thousands, it has been a whole decade, after all C?of neophyte watch lovers, the SNK803 was their first quality mechanical watch, thanks to Weiss' 2011 article. (It took a full decade, but the SNK803 made its official HODINKEE debut when James highlighted it as one of his top affordable picks, last November.) Image by author. I think it's quite cool that Weiss, Malin, Helms, and the rest of the Worn & Wound team have turned their creative scope inward for the company's 10-year anniversary, creating a watch that's unique to their own tastes and sensibilities but should speak to the wide audience of those with a fondness for Seiko tool watches.?Although the watch industry has rapidly matured in the United States over the last decade C something Worn & Wound has had a key role in shaping C what hasn't changed is the ability to buy a genuinely interesting mechanical watch from Seiko for less than $500. Congratulations to Worn & Wound on a successful first decade C?here's to many, many more. The Basics Brand: Seiko 5 Sports Worn & WoundModel: Worn & Wound 10th Anniversary Limited EditionDiameter: 39.4mmThickness: 13.2mmLug-To-Lug: 48.1mmCase Material: Brushed and polished stainless steelDial Color: Grey metallic center with sunburst finish; off-white outer ring with "waffle" finishCrystal: Curved Hardlex Lume: Yes, LumiBrite on hands and hour markersWater Resistance: 100 metersStrap/Bracelet: Two-piece nylon strap in olive green, and an additional ADPT US-Made Mil-Strap in Admiralty Grey Image by author. The Movement Caliber: 4R36Functions: Hours, minutes, seconds, date, dayDiameter: 27.4mmThickness: 5.32mmPower Reserve: 40 hoursWinding: AutomaticFrequency: 21,600 vph / 3 HzJewels: 24Chronometer Certified: N/AAdditional Details: English/Kanji day wheel, bidirectional winding, hand winding, hacking seconds Pricing & Availability Price: $325Availability: Available exclusively at the Windup Watch Shop at 7:00 PM ET, February 17, 2022.Limited Edition: Yes, 1,000 pieces.For more, click here. Images supplied by Worn & Wound unless noted in caption. Shop this story The team at Worn & Wound are old friends.?You can learn more about the Seiko 5 Sports Worn & Wound 10th Anniversary Limited Edition and purchase yours at 7:00 PM ET, February 17, 2022, right here.HODINKEE is an Authorized Retailer of Seiko watches; you can view our curated selection?here.