In 1978, when the Lord Quartz was introduced and positioned just below the King Quartzes, it was more expensive than a lot of the King Quartz 4823 calibers. Admittedly the 482x was showing its age, but was still perfectly adequate, indeed 40 year onwards these calibers just keep on ticking precisely. But so do the LQ’s. The square styled watches in particular, with calibres 7853/7143 were at the top of their range and first to see the light of day. They were depicted in the catalogue right below a modernistic introductory advert. Seiko always did this to present the most prestigious product line watches.

Still, the 7853 calibre watches were somewhat thicker than the other LQ options, specifically the 7143, and yes there was no mistake here, these calibers ran at 10 seconds per month! Just like the King Quartz.

Unlike the Kings, these Lords however are very rare watches to obtain. Either because of the value of the high rollers (7853LQ usually costing about 560 euro, inflation corrected) or because the lower range, at 36% percent less (costing about 380 euro), was just cheap enough to simply wear into oblivion. It doesn’t help of course that these watches were produced only in a three year span between 1978 and 1980.

That this product line spoke to the imagination is apparent as even Seiko’s high end quartz, the 7830 costing 100.000 yen, used the same base caliber. At just 9mm it was 10 years ahead of its time as far as quartz goes. It is fun to check this watch against its competitors of 1978 (go to birth year watches and see for yourselves). These are all “fatties” with lots of stuff ging on dial wise. The vintage Lord Quartz however remains a bit of a unicorn - it does not sit in the house of commons with the other types (II) just below it, but is definitely a backbencher these days while the kings get all the glory. Buy them while you can, they won't last forever.