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Seiko's Presage Tradman's Bonsai goes full gold over a pine-needle green dial

Seiko's HCC009J1 is a 2,000-piece bonsai collaboration in gold, with a pine needle green dial, a three-day 6R51 and an A$2,100 price.

Hen & Mills Editorial · 2 min read · 13 August 2026

Seiko Presage HCC009J1 at an angle on its gold-tone bracelet, the pine-needle green dial catching the light — Seiko

Seiko describes the new Presage HCC009J1 as having "gold-tone accents on the case and strap". I have now spent a while with the photos trying to find the bits that aren't the accents. The case is gold. The bracelet is gold. The hands and the markers are gold. This is not a watch with accents. This is a watch that has committed.

There is a reason for it, and it's a better one than gold sells. The watch is a collaboration with TRADMAN'S BONSAI, a Japanese collective that has been building and curating bonsai spaces since 2015, and the brief was a Japanese black pine under moonlight. Read the gold as the moon and the whole thing makes sense, which leaves the dial to play the tree.

Case back of the Seiko HCC009J1 showing the 6R51 through sapphire, engraved Limited Edition and numbered 0001/2000 — Seiko

Pine needle green, edge to centre

The dial colour is matsuba-iro, pine needle green, a traditional shade Seiko says has long been taken as a sign of good fortune. It goes almost black around the rim and opens into a deep bottle green as it comes in towards the centre. There's a radiating pattern worked into it as well, which Seiko took from the texture a pine builds up as it ages, and in the press shots it fans out from the middle like needles. I'd have it over another sunburst any day of the week.

Two thousand will be made, each one numbered. The case back is the screw-down display type, so the 6R51 is on show through sapphire with LIMITED EDITION and the serial engraved around it.

Three days out of the 6R51

The 6R51 is automatic with manual winding, 24 jewels, stop-seconds, and roughly 72 hours of reserve. Accuracy is quoted at plus 25 to minus 15 seconds a day, which is the number every 6R gets and nobody should be startled by it. The reserve is the part you'll actually notice, on a watch like this that's going to spend more time in a rotation than on your wrist.

The case measures 38.0mm across, 12.9mm thick and 43.8mm lug to lug, with 20mm between the lugs. Sensible numbers, all of them. Water resistance is 10 bar, magnetic resistance is 4,800 A/m, and the crystal is dual-curved sapphire with anti-reflective coating on the inner surface. The bracelet closes on a deployment clasp with a push-button release.

The HCC009J1 in its wooden presentation box alongside the spare calf strap — Seiko

A pine needle where nobody looks

Seiko has built a presentation box specifically for this one and put a watch cloth in it carrying the TRADMAN'S BONSAI mark. There's a spare strap in calf too, and its underside is embossed with a sanko-matsu pine needle motif. That's another good-fortune symbol, pressed into the one surface that faces your wrist and is therefore invisible the entire time you're wearing the watch. Seiko pressed it in anyway, which is a collaboration bothering with a detail nobody will ever check.

A$2,100 and a September release

Whether you want a watch this gold is the question I can't answer for you. I'm not certain I could wear it, and I've had the dial photo sitting open in a tab all morning anyway, so weigh my hesitation accordingly.

Seiko lists it at A$2,100 on its Australian storefront, with the release set for September 2026. For a three-day 6R51 in a 38mm case, a numbered run of 2,000, a dial doing that much work and a second strap in the box, that's a fair number.