The first Crown Chronograph was a mono-pusher — operating start, stop and reset functions with one pusher — and the lack of sub-dials emphasized the clean impression of the dial. It was equipped with a bidirectional rotating bezel made of plastic acting as a 60-minute register in a pinch. In practice, you’d set the triangle at the 0/60 mark to the minute hand and start the chronograph to clock the minutes.
Seiko actually released another homage piece to this chronograph, Presage SARK015 (known outside of Japan as the SRQ031), last October to celebrate the 55 years of Seiko chronograph history. That piece was a conventional three-register chronograph equipped with the brand’s chronograph movement 8R48. One could say it was an embodiment of the technological advancements over the last 55 years, but some enthusiasts weren’t too happy with its design execution which just loosely borrowed the overall look and feel of the original, such as the dial color. This new homage piece, however, follows the original design language more closely, although it is, in fact, a non-chronograph three-hander.