Click to view our Accessibility Statement or contact us with accessibility-related questions
Drop Refurbished
Like-new products you can trustDrop Rewards
Get $5 for every 500 points you earn! Learn more
Drop Keyboard Club
Become a member and expand your keycap collectionCollaborate With Us
For Brands & DesignersFollow Drop
As far as the Hardlex crystals, that seems more the rule than the exception for the Seiko divers. It's possible that they feel buyers will appreciate and really use their watches as intended (rather than as desk divers) so they put in crystals that are a little less brittle albeit not as scratch-resistant. Case in point, the ~$2500 MarineMaster has a Hardlex crystal even though a number of people have complained about a watch with that price tag not having sapphire. Cheers!
But peeking at their Japanese site, here's the first expensive ($2,200) Prospex diver I checked, and it's sapphire.
https://www.seikowatches.com/jp-ja/products/prospex/SBBN040
I have a $180 Seiko semi-dress watch, not a diver, that I bought here that has sapphire for the front crystal, this one:
https://www.massdrop.com/buy/39321
That first watch you linked to looks like a limited edition version of the "Golden" Tuna, a saturation diving watch with the distinct "tuna can" shape. Historically, these models also use Hardlex except for the limited variants, one of which you've found. Don't know the reason for that. [shrugs shoulders] Cheers!