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Seiko puts hand-fired enamel and black urushi on two new Presage Craftsmanship watches

Two hand-made dials, white enamel on the HCC005 and black urushi on the HCC006, share one 39.6mm case and the three-day 6R5H from September.

Hen & Mills Editorial · 3 min read · 13 August 2026

The white enamel Seiko Presage HCC005 and the black urushi lacquer HCC006 side by side — Image: Seiko

A red 12 sits at the top of the HCC005's dial. Seiko put it there because the 1913 Laurel had one, and the Laurel was Japan's first wristwatch. The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers lists it as Mechanical Engineering Heritage, so Seiko has every reason to keep going back to it. On 13 August it turned up on two new Presage models.

Both belong to the Classic Series Craftsmanship line, the corner of Presage where somebody still has to make the dial by hand. The HCC005 is white enamel. The HCC006 is black urushi lacquer with gold-coloured accents. One case, one movement, two watches that look nothing like each other.

The 1913 Seiko Laurel, Japan’s first wristwatch, with its red 12 and wire lugs — Image: Seiko

Yokosawa fires the enamel, the Tsujis paint the lacquer

Seiko names the artisans, which plenty of brands never bother doing. The enamel is the work of Mitsuru Yokosawa and Kazunori Uchiyama, who learned the craft from Yokosawa. Seiko says the glaze has to be adjusted for the temperature and humidity on the day, so before anyone fires a dial, someone reads the weather inside the workshop.

The urushi runs on the same logic. Isshu Tamura supervises, and the dials come from Toshikazu Tsuji, his daughter Mitsuki Tsuji and their team, in Echizen lacquer, one of the oldest lacquerware traditions in Japan. Mitsuki Tsuji has also started studying under Tamura in Kanazawa. The depth in the black comes from painting and polishing by hand, over and over, and Seiko says the surface toughens as it ages. Most dials go the other way.

Seiko Presage HCC005 with a white enamel dial, blued hands and a red 12 — Image: Seiko

Seiko Presage HCC006 with a black urushi lacquer dial and gold-coloured numerals — Image: Seiko

3Hz, 24 jewels and a long weekend off the wrist

Both run the 6R5H: automatic, 24 jewels, 21,600 vibrations an hour. That is 3Hz, slow by current standards, and it is also how you get 72 hours out of one mainspring without stacking a second barrel. The dial reads AUTOMATIC 3 DAYS, so Seiko is quite happy to tell you which side of that trade it took. Reasonable call. A watch that is still going after two days on the dresser is better company than one keeping a fraction of a second better per day.

The case is 39.6mm across and 12.4mm thick, under a dual-curved sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating on the inside, and there is a see-through screw caseback. The HCC005 is steel with a super-hard coating. The HCC006 is steel with yellow gold-coloured plating to match the gold on the lacquer, and on its brown strap it looks warmer than the spec list makes it sound.

Straps are oil-tanned leather from Leather Working Group certified tanneries, on a three-fold clasp with a push-button release. Seiko is an LWG member and says it wants more than 90 per cent of its leather straps coming from certified tanneries in future.

Image: Seiko

3 bar, 1,430 euros, and the one worth having

Water resistance is 3 bar. Rain and a splash at the basin, no swimming. That is ordinary for a dress Presage and still worth knowing, because a display caseback and a hand-fired enamel dial are not things you go looking for the limits of.

Recommended retail in Europe is 1,430 euros for the enamel HCC005 and 1,640 for the urushi HCC006. Neither is limited. Both are regular production, on sale at Seiko Boutiques and selected retailers worldwide from September 2026. Seiko hasn't put an Australian figure on either watch yet.

The urushi is the more impressive object and almost certainly the harder one to make. I'd still take the enamel. A red 12 on flat white is the only mark on either dial you can read from across a room.