Up until about 2018, if a non-watch person asked you, an enlightened “watch person,” what (mechanical) watch they should buy, there’s a pretty good chance you’d direct them to a Seiko 5, more specifically the SNK 800 series, a simple collection of 36mm watches from Seiko that, at the time, sold for $65, give or take. The SNK series was cheap and functional, with an aesthetic somewhere between a pilot and a field watch that had broad appeal. Then, in 2019, Seiko introduced its new Seiko 5 Sports collection, discontinuing its previous line of Seiko 5 models.