Seiko introduced the first Grand Seiko watch in 1960.
The original Grand Seiko was made by Seiko’s Suwa Seikosha factory in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. It was created to pursue a higher level of precision, durability and finishing than the company’s ordinary watches, helping demonstrate that Japanese mechanical watches could compete at the international high end.
The first model used the manually wound caliber 3180. Its stated accuracy was approximately plus or minus 12 seconds per day, an ambitious specification for its period. Grand Seiko models also became known for clean dials, sharply finished hands and indexes, and strong attention to case proportions.
Grand Seiko began as a line within Seiko and became a separate brand in 2017. That separation is why older watches may carry Seiko branding while newer Grand Seiko watches generally use the independent GS identity.