Seiko Takes the Rotocall Upmarket With A Gold And Silver Case

The Rotocall finally has a version you could wear with a suit. Well, not, absolutely not. There is no serious situation in which you could wear a Seiko Rotocall with a suit. But... If you were to find a purple suit from the 1980s in a thrift shop, this silver or gold version of the iconic Seiko model could fit right in. I'm digging that gold. A lot.

The case is 37mm wide, the same size as the 1982 original. The cool thing about the Rotocall is that it used its octagonal bezel to run everything on the watch, and the reissue works the same way: turn it to move between stopwatch, countdown timer, alarm and dual time. It’s the system that got the Rotocall onto the wrists of astronauts in the ’80s, Sally Ride among them, and it easier to use than most button-driven digitals. Seiko has changed the finishing from polished to circular brushing, which looks better and will hide desk scratches. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The silver model pairs a silver bezel with black accents and a matching silver surround on the dial. The gold model does the same in gold tone, with a gold-tone case and bracelet. The reverse LCD makes the whole thing look more serious and far less like a toy. You do give up some legibility, as reverse displays always get harder to read in low or angled light, so expect to tilt your wrist more often than you would with the 2025 versions.

Inside is a quartz digital module. Seiko hasn’t given it a calibre number in the material we’ve seen. The bracelet is a five-row steel design with a folding clasp, faithful to the original and comfortable on a watch this size.

Now, you might already be thinking that you've seen these watches before, and that they came out months ago. True. But that was in Japan only. They are now available worldwide, priced at $550. See more on the Seiko website.