Teddy Baldassarre
Casio Just Re-Released The Very First G-Shock
Casio's G-Shock brand is celebrating a big birthday this year. And much like many industries, it is taking its 40th anniversary as a chance to look to the past, to get nostalgic, to wax digital. The thing is, while a brand like TAG Heuer can make a statement with the launch of the KITH F1 watches in near ‘80-faithful form, or even one like Timex can reissue the IronMan in a 1:1 configuration (JDM only; sorry, USA), Casio is in a bit of tough spot…for a good reason. I think of the G-Shock like the affordable, digital version of the Omega Speedmaster "Moonwatch," a watch whose design has been altered but, in many ways, has effectively been in uninterrupted production since the 1960s – and we love it for that reason. Similarly, through models like the modern DW-5600, Casio has been producing some manner of the original G-Shock since, um, the birth of G-Shock four decades ago. And again, we love that. I mean, people really love that. I even own a DW-5600 and I’m not what you might call a G-Shock guy, or a G-shocker, or whatever it is you call it (to be honest, people probably don’t call it anything). This has been a deeply circuitous route to saying that the brand has released a throwback G-Shock to celebrate its own birthday which is essentially a reissue of the very first G-Shock. And all of my preamble is to illustrate that, at first blush, you probably don’t notice anything massive here. But like any release worthy of watch nerdery, the devil is in the resin...
