Hands On: I Wore The Sold-Out Seiko X Rowing Blazers X Eric Wind Watch

Some watch collaborations make you wonder what exactly the collaborators did besides put their names on the same timepiece and press release. Others work because the people involved understand the history they are playing with.

The latest Rowing Blazers x Wind Vintage x Seiko 5 Sports Rally Diver falls decidedly into the latter camp. Released last month as the fourth collaboration between Rowing Blazers, Seiko and vintage watch expert Eric Wind, the two limited editions sold out quickly and have already migrated to the secondary market at substantial premiums.

After borrowing and wearing the 38mm racing-green version, Reference SRPM21, I understand the enthusiasm.

The first thing that grabs you is the green-and-white checkerboard bezel. It looks like a racing flag wrapped around the wrist and gives the watch an energy that belies its relatively compact dimensions.

Then there is the racing-green dial, which was one of my favorite aspects of the watch. In bright light, the green is obvious; in dimmer surroundings, it becomes so dark that it can easily appear black.That ability to change personality depending on the light gives the watch considerably more wrist presence than its 38mm diameter might suggest.

For me, the size was also just right. At 38mm in diameter, 12.1mm thick and 44.2mm lug to lug, the stainless-steel watch sat comfortably on my wrist and felt easy to wear. It comes on a stainless-steel bracelet and is also delivered with a blue nylon strap — a playful contrast to the green dial and bezel. But I personally really preferred the bracelet. It gave it a bit more “in your face” appeal.

Wind’s involvement with the Rally Diver goes back to the first vintage watch he ever bought: a 1969 Seiko Rally Diver. That watch became the inspiration for the Rally Diver created for the first Rowing Blazers x Seiko collaboration in 2021.

“I like watch designs that make sense within the context of a brand’s history, and collaborations that blend great aspects of all companies involved,” Wind told me. “I am not a fan of 1:1 exact reissues of vintage watches as the original is always better than an identical reissue.”

Instead, the idea is to take recognizable historical DNA and move it forward.

“The 2021 Rally Diver was such a hit because it had the distinct 1969 Rally Diver DNA, but was updated for modern tastes and the collaboration,” Wind says.

That first Rally Diver was produced in a run of just 500 pieces and sold out rapidly. This time around, the partners revisited the concept in two versions, each limited to 2,500 numbered pieces: the 38mm green SRPM21 that I wore and the larger 42.5mm SRPM19 with its bright blue dial and matching blue-and-white checkerboard bezel.

The smaller size was possible because Seiko introduced a 38mm Seiko 5 Sports platform after the partners’ original 2021 collaboration.

“We were thrilled to create a Rally Diver using that watch for those who found the 42mm Rally Diver a bit too large,” Wind says. He initially considered black for the smaller watch before opting for green. “I thought a dark green dial and bezel that could look black in dim light would be cooler and a nice complement to the blue.”

Inside is Seiko’s automatic Caliber 4R36, a 24-jewel movement operating at 21,600 vibrations per hour and offering approximately 41 hours of power reserve. It can also be manually wound and offers stop-seconds functionality. The dial displays the day and date at 3 o’clock, with the day indication switchable between English and Spanish. LumiBrite is used on the hands and markers, with a warmer vintage-inspired coloration.

The green version has a curved Hardlex crystal,  unidirectional rotating bezel and 100 meters of water resistance. A red-and-white striped seconds hand adds another small burst of Rowing Blazers irreverence.

Turn the watch over and things get even more personal.

The screw-down transparent caseback carries the individual limited-edition number, Wind Vintage name and an image of a water faucet. It isn’t some random bit of plumbing. The faucet is the Rowing Blazers “Bath Club” motif, referring to an Oxford private club whose members, according to Wind, challenged one another nearly a century ago to take baths in the women’s colleges in order to gain membership. Wind says he was particularly pleased that both the Wind Vintage name and the “famous (or infamous)” Bath Club faucet could appear on the caseback.

It is precisely those slightly eccentric details that make this collaboration work. The checkerboard bezel isn’t there because racing-inspired watches happen to be fashionable. The design reaches back to Seiko’s vintage Rally Divers and to a watch that Wind himself collected long before this collaboration existed.

And apparently collectors noticed. Both watches retailed for $495, but the green version in particular quickly began appearing on secondary-market sites at considerably higher asking prices, with some approaching or exceeding $1,000.

That’s where my enthusiasm becomes a little more complicated. At $495, I think this watch is terrific: colorful, comfortable, automatic, historically grounded and just quirky enough to feel different from a standard-production Seiko 5 Sports. I loved wearing the 38mm green version, and the checkerboard bezel and almost-black-in-certain-light dial gave me something new to notice every time I looked at my wrist.

At close to $1,000 on the secondary market? I’m not quite as sure. But perhaps the fact that people are willing to ask twice the original price just weeks after its release says something about what happens when a collaboration gets the ingredients right. This isn’t simply Rowing Blazers dressing up a Seiko with Eric Wind inspiration. It is Seiko history filtered through Rowing Blazers’ sense of fun and the eye — and personal collecting history — of Eric Wind. Sometimes three really isn’t a crowd.