I didn’t mean to buy another watch. Really! I was actually selling watches when I noticed this lightly used Seiko 5 on Watchuseek for $150, and I thought, “maybe the dude will take less,” and he did, and, well, you know how it goes. Anyway, now I can review the SKZ211J for you.
The Map Meter, also popularly known as the Seiko Atlas or Land Shark, was first introduced in 2005 and is still widely available. The list price is $495, but I have no idea who pays that when you can find it all over the web for about half that. I snagged this used one for $135, head only, without its original bracelet or strap.
Several Map Meter variants are floating around out there: the SKZ207 is white, the 209 has an indigo dial with polished hands and polished case sides, and the 219 has orange hands. I’m sure there may be others, but let’s focus on this one. This SKZ211J is the black dial, matte case, yellow hands, Made in Japan version. All versions share the stalwart 7S36, 23-jewel automatic movement.
It looks every inch the proper tool watch with its big case, dual crowns, and burly crown guards. The 4 o’clock crown sets the time and day/date, while the 9 o’clock crown operates an internal compass bezel. It also features a conventional 12-click external bezel marked for 60 minutes, although oddly, without a center triangle or a single hash mark.
The presence of an English and Arabic day wheel marks this watch as an export model. An Arabic day is a first for my collection. If given the option, I will always choose a foreign language day on my watches. Maybe it’s silly, but I dig the novelty. Notice that while the Seiko’s English day shows Sunday in red, the Arabic display shows a red Friday, the Muslim day of worship. It’s a nice touch.
I was drawn to this model because of its distinctive case. It measures 42.5mm wide, 49mm long, and 13.5mm thick. These are already generous proportions, and both the pronounced asymmetric crown guards at 4 o’clock and the more conventionally shaped guards on the left-hand side beef it up even more. In true Seiko fashion, the case is expertly finished. Those left side guards wear a polished accent plate with faux fasteners that stand in sharp contrast to the brushed top and matte sides. Other bright accents appear on the knurled bezel and crowns and between the lugs.
With all of its girth and appendages, you would think the watch would be a monster to wear, but while it is certainly on the larger side of the sports watch continuum, it really quite manageable. I think it works rather well on my 6.75″ wrist.
One would expect a compass watch to have a traditional field watch layout. Not so on the Map Meter. Instead, you will find more of a pilot’s look with white cardinal numbers and batons markers on a black dial. A day/date complication occupied the 3 o’clock position. Its metal frame and the Seiko 5 logo are the only applied elements. The rest are printed. My one real not to pick is with the tiny text wrapped between 4:30 and 7:30. Frankly, you have to look pretty closely to see the “Made in Japan 7S36 02A2 R 2” (I needed a loupe), but once you do, you will notice that it is not balanced. They kind of fudged it by spacing out the “R” and “2” but it is not a comfortable fit down there. As I said, you have to squint, so I certainly can’t ding them for it. Non-Japan-made K models have no such issue.
In another divergence from the field watch norm, Seiko opted for a diver-style handset. The yellow color and large arrow minute hand would look right at home on a scuba watch.
Come to think of it; there is no reason not to wear the Map Meter on a dive. It is rated for 200m water resistance, the primary crown screws down, it has Seiko’s usual Hardex mineral crystal, the unidirectional outer bezel is firm and secure. As the light gets dim in the briny depths, you can rely on its high contrast dial and Lumibrite glow. It may not be a crazy lume torch like my SKX781 Orange Monster, but it’s more than up to the task.
In fact, I’m going to recommend that you do wear this watch to dive, or picnic, or get brunch, whatever you usually do with your tool watches – just so long as you don’t use it as a compass because when it comes to fulfilling its namesake function, the Map Meter sucks. Now, a watch is not a compass, and using one as such is really only advisable when there is no other option. You can find out how to do it here, but in short, you align the sun with the hour hand and mark your south-north line midway between the 12 and the hour hand with your compass bezel. The problem here is that while the primary crown screws down and the outer bezel is secure, the compass crown and bezel move freely with minimal resistance. Surely they are protected by those big crown guards, right? Wrong. The slightest movement of my hand spins the bezel, making the Map Meter more of a Wander-in-circles-until-you-die-in-the-wilderness Meter. Seiko fixed the problem on their later compass watches, but from what I have read, this failure afflicts all of the original models. On the upside, the whole internal bezel assembly does look pretty cool, and they did a nice job with the knurled, signed, and dual-finished crown. You just have to accept that it is merely an ornament.
As noted above, I bought this watch sans bracelet or original strap, so I can’t evaluate them. I will say that the Map Meter accepts 22mm straps and looks the business on this fat, black leather number I pulled from my strap drawer. Swappers will have great fun with this watch, particularly since the drilled lugs and deep undercut between the lugs make it so easy to fit a wide variety of pass-through and beefy, two-piece straps.
Reservations about the compass bezel aside, I have to say that I am thoroughly enjoying my Map Meter (Atlas, Land Shark, whatever). It looks great, wears well, and in terms of all the usual tool watch functions, it is rock-solid. If you want to buy a new SKZ211J for yourself, you can find it at CreationWatches.com for $247, with the bracelet, of course.
