Got One

[puma1552]

Managed to grab an SBGW297 from the Wako flagship in my final hours in Japan on my way to the airport. Watch has not been sized yet (told them I'd do it myself) so it's very loose. MSRP is $5,600 in the US. It goes for 770,000 in Japan including tax, but as a tourist I got it tax free for 700,000, which was $4,595 with the weak yen.

1) It's beautiful. These 36.5mm 44GS cases seem to have pretty good endlink fitment also.

2) The crown spins backwards a little bit with each turn, even from full dead which I found unusual but I found other reports online of this being normal for the 9S64 movement. It makes sense since you're putting tension on a spring even from the beginning, but my Rolexes don't start to backspin until nearly fully wound, so just something I wasn't used to. Crown is smooth and feels/sounds good.

3) I like/prefer the narrower katana hands personally. Blue heat treated seconds hand is nice.

4) The manual wind + push crown + no date is so convenient, contrary to initial thought. Literally pick it up, leave the crown pushed in right where it is, spin it a bit and I'm on my way each day. No fiddling with unscrewing a crown and dealing with a date or AM/PM or whatever like my DJs...this is actually really easy for an everyday watch.

5) The bracelet is fine as it's 18 mm all the way through. Yeah, taper to 16 mm would be nice but 18mm all the way through splits the difference of my 36 mm Rolex DJs that go from 20 mm --> 16 mm so it provides a different wearing experience.

6) Wako customer service of course did not disappoint, however they did not allow me to keep the hang tags unfortunately; they said they had to keep them. Not a big deal, but would've been nice to get to keep them.

7) I was able to join the Japanese GS club as I have a couple Japanese addresses I can use despite technically being a tourist.

[brandrea]

Very nice, congratulations

[Jackie Daytona]

Nice looking watch! Congrats!

[puma1552]

Couple more





EDIT: guess the image compression here is pretty bad, seem to lose all the detail and sharpness

[Easy E]

Very nice choice. Congratulations

[Cru Jones]

Many congrats!

[1William]

Congratulations.

[Bazil]

So so good …

[samson66]

Beautiful dial and fits your wrist well. Congratulations!

[puma1552]

Thanks all. I sized it yesterday (Loctite almost done curing now to be safe) and am happy to report I also did not need either of the 2/3 links for a perfect fit, so I've got a nice clean looking bracelet all the way around. Removed both 2/3 links and two full links and that got me right where I needed to be for my preferred just slightly loose fit.

I had zero issues sizing it. I found the tiny screws easy enough to work with, none of them were hard to remove (kinda surprised, I heard GS uses threadlocker at the factory) and everything went back together nice and smooth, didn't gouge any screws or scratch any links. I only removed one screw per link I touched and just turned the bracelet over and gently tapped the bracelet until the pin fell out, which wasn't difficult at all.

Also I used a traditional 1.3mm hollow ground screwdriver. I had ordered a 1.4mm from Esslinger that said it was a "T-blade that is better than a traditional hollow ground" as I was having trouble finding a high quality 1.4mm standalone traditional hollow ground without spending $200 on a full set of all different sizes. The 1.4mm does still fit in the screw slot so is probably the best size, but the blade was way too narrow to fill the narrow dimension of the screw slot, whereas my 1.3mm was thicker, so I used that and it went perfectly fine. While a 1.4 is technically a better fit, the trade off is you run a little higher risk of camming out the edge of the link screw hole as you've got less room for error side to side. I found the 1.3mm to work really well and would use that again...it's more important that it's thick enough to fill the short dimension of the screw slot imo. For the Loctite, I just took a piece of printer paper, cut a really skinny triangle, dipped the tip into a small dab of Loctite, and held it into the threads inside the link to transfer it...this worked exceptionally well - transferred just enough into the threads without gumming up the pin below or oozing out past the screw head...zero clean up of excess Loctite was needed and links articulate fully nice and smooth. Hopefully some of these tips help someone else, I couldn't really find a de facto screw driver size to use when searching.

I looked over the watch carefully, don't see any quality issues or imperfections, and it is now sized. My sole criticism is a common one - the vertical clasp gap between the leading edge of the clasp and the bracelet when closed is sort of dumb and unnecessary, but they all seem to be this way by design which I knew before I bought it.

I'm now just finishing up a 72 power reserve test just to make sure it gets the advertised 72 hours. So once the Loctite finishes its 24 hour cure this afternoon and the power reserve test finishes tonight, I will give it a nice bath (GS says do NOT wash it under a faucet due to the push crown despite 100m water resistance?) and then it will be ready to start its nice long service life. Very very happy with the watch, and very happy with the purchase experience in Japan at Wako (not to mention the ~25% effective discount from US MSRP + tax). Fantastic watch for $4,600 out the door, especially considering my 36mm Rolex DJs were $8,400 out the door. Is the Rolex a better watch? Probably marginally, but the price:value ratio can't be denied on the GS at the price paid.

[Urosfan]

Congrats


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[RW16610]

Congratulations!

[alllexandru]

Nice! Congratulations!

[pandrew6l]

Wow, nice job for saving $$ on this beautiful GS

[puma1552]

Thanks - one question, as I haven't really experimented - is dial up typically the resting orientation that will make it speed up the most? It's running a little fast but within spec with dial up, so everything is good, I'm just curious if dial up is understood to be the most time gaining orientation on a GS, specifically a 9S64 manual wind movement.

[travisb]

Great dial. Congrats!