Grand Seiko Expands their Birch Offerings Once More with the SLGH017 “Night Birch”

In what is quickly becoming a very expensive game of Pokemon, Grand Seiko has announced, to absolutely nobody’s surprise, a new watch in the Birch family. The capitalization there is intentional, as I think we’ve now got an honest to goodness proper noun on our hands, and not merely a descriptor for a dial style within the larger Grand Seiko collection. After two White Birches (a high beat and a Spring Drive with a slightly different dial texture) as well as a Birch in green, Grand Seiko adds a fourth watch to an expanding family of watches, this time in black. 

First things first, Grand Seiko’s preferred name for this watch, reference SLGH017, is the “Night Birch,” as opposed to the Black Birch, which of course is what many on Instagram were calling it as the first images began to leak publicly last week. According to the brand, the gray and black coloring of the dial is meant to represent an evening scene in the same white birch forest captured in the original watch. It’s not a “black birch” at all, which is of course a different tree altogether. Similarly, the Green Birch is a peek at the white birch trees during the height of summer, but since there isn’t actually a tree called the green birch, Grand Seiko’s colored naming convention holds for that particular reference. On a personal level, I’m glad to call this one the Night Birch, lest it be confused with one of my favorite restaurants: shout out to the Black Birch of Kittery, ME.

Like the other Birch watches, the dial has a dramatic texture which is the product of the brass base being pressed repeatedly with a precise level of force prior to being given a thick, lacquer-like coating to bring out extra depth. The texture on a Birch watch is not subtle, so you really have to be into the idea of noticing this very specific pattern every time you look at your wrist. But if that’s your thing, nobody really does it better than Grand Seiko. The execution on any Birch is always second to none. 

The case here is in the same Evolution 9 profile as the other Birches, which is to say it’s broad and sporty, but with many refined details in the finishing. Unlike those other watches, however, the SLGH017 is crafted from Grand Seiko’s high-intensity titanium. That, in my opinion, is the real story of this watch. Grand Seiko’s use of titanium is a pretty special thing – they are one of only a small handful of brands with the ability to finish a titanium alloy in much the same fashion as steel. It’s pretty incredible to pick up a titanium Grand Seiko and realize that virtually nothing is lost when it comes to the Zaratsu polishing and crisp transitions from facet to facet. And of course a titanium watch is going to be significantly lighter than a similar watch in steel, which is impressive in a different way, and represents its own unique flavor of “luxury.” 

And make no mistake: this is a luxury watch. The Evolution 9 watches represent the best Grand Seiko has to offer in the realm of case and dial finishing, and it’s also a showcase for their best movement technology. The Night Birch runs on the 9SA5 high frequency caliber, featuring Grand Seiko’s proprietary Dual Impulse Escapement. It’s the most advanced purely mechanical caliber made by Grand Seiko at the moment, and like the rest of the watch is finished to extremely high standard. It’s also rated to +5/-3 seconds per day and boasts an 80 hour power reserve. 

The SLGH017 is available to pre-order now through Grand Seiko’s website and is expected in boutiques later this summer. The retail price is $10,400.  Grand Seiko