The Seiko Lord Matic - like the 1976 Seiko 5216-8020 LM Special "Nippon Telegraph and Telephone" (NTT) Award automatic dress watch here - has all the classic signs of Taro Tanaka’s “Grammar of Design” cues, to include razor sharp lines, angular case corners, circumspect textures, and highly reflective surfaces.
 
Couple this with a silver linen dial so nice it needs its own thread count, with its so-thin-its-almost-not-there seconds hand, and a unique contract between the silver dial, black/silver hands, and gold applied Lord Matic logo, and you’ve got an outstanding dress watch.
 
But why do we call this a "Nippon Telegraph and Telephone" award watch?
 
Per the kanji Japanese engravings on the case back, this Seiko 5216 LM Special was awarded by in 1977 by the President of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT, 株式会社) to a loyal employee.
 
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) is a large Japanese telecommunications holding company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, and is ranked 55th in the Fortune Global 500 as the fourth largest telecommunications company in the world in terms of revenue and the third largest publicly traded company in Japan after Toyota and Sony as of mid-2022.  
 
During a post-WWII era, Japan moved from light to heavy industries and in 1952 NTT was established as a state monopoly to take over the Japanese telecommunications system operated by AT&T during the U.S. occupation of Japan, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation (as it was then known, 日本電信電話公社) was privatized in 1985 to encourage competition in the country's telecom market, a decision that made Japan the first Asian country and second worldwide (after the U.S.) to deregulate its telecoms market. 
 
As part of this privatization, the NTT was reorganized as a hybrid public-and-private venture, which was traded on the stock exchange but governed by a law mandating more than one-third of the corporation was required to be owned by the Japanese Government.
 
In the modern era, the NTT is a conglomerate employing more than 300,000 people across subsidiaries that include mobile network operations, energy, finance, advanced technology and IT infrastructure and integration services.  The Japanese company’s footprint is global, spanning Japan and the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East and Africa, the United States and the European Union.  NTT continues to innovate and recently announced new advancements in microchips and optical and wireless communications networks.  In 2023, the company was ranked 56th in the Forbes Global 2000.
 
In the 1970s, Seiko used terms like “Hi-Beat,” “VFA” (Very Fine Adjusted), and “Special” for its automatic movements – Hi-Beat was used with movement frequencies of 28,800 or 36,000 beats per hour, and VFA was utilized for movements exceeding chronometer specifications (ie: +/- 1 minute per month).
 
The third term, “Special” was the VFA’s smaller sibling; while it didn’t feature the same precision, it was -3/+3 seconds a day when new. In the mid-1970s, when Seiko released the LM Special, it was wholly dedicated to quartz production, with a few minor exceptions – even the flagship mechanical lines had been discontinued, Grand and King Seiko, in the early 1970s. Of the mechanical exceptions was the LM Special, which was the top of what was left of Seiko’s mechanical lines.
 
The Ref. 5200 LM Special automatic movement was the last of the Seiko Daini movements – an upgrade on previous movements – and the improved movement incorporated hand winding, hacking, and a micro regulator for higher precision.
 
To the unversed, quick setting the date can be unsettling, as this also manually winds the mainspring, leading to wearer concern the force is damaging the date gear (it doesn’t). The 5200 line lives on to this day as the inspiration for Seiko’s 4S automatic movements, used in such legends as the SKX diver line and more.
 
This Seiko 5216 LM Special comes on leather strap and with nylon strap, springbar tool, and rugged travel case.