MINASE USA: The Complete Guide to Buying a MINASE Watch in America

About five hundred watches a year. Some forty shops in Japan, three in Switzerland, and one in the United States. If you have searched for MINASE USA, you have probably already decided you want one of these watches; the harder question is where, and how, to buy one in America. This guide answers it from the only U.S. shop on MINASE’s own list of stockists, where a MINASE can be seen, sized and bought in person.

MINASE is made in the village of Minase, in Akita Prefecture, about 370 miles north of Tokyo, by a company that spent four decades making tools, cases and eventually whole watches for other brands before it signed one of its own. Its watches are, in MINASE’s words, “basically made to order”: assembled by hand in small numbers and finished to a standard that does not scale. That is the reason for the scarcity, and it is also the reason the brand has been hard to find here. A workshop that builds a few hundred watches a year has no use for a national retail network, and for most of its history MINASE did not have an American one.

So Americans have bought MINASE in three ways: by importing one from an overseas webshop, by finding one on a marketplace, or, since 2026, by visiting Tempus Takumi on 57th Street. We should say plainly where this guide stands. Tempus Takumi is MINASE’s authorized U.S. dealer, listed by MINASE as its representative in the United States. We have tried to write the page we would want to read if we were on the other side of the counter: every collection compared at true size, what each costs here, what importing actually involves, and what happens after you own the watch.

MINASE’s American story is short, because the brand itself is young and it looked to Europe first. The longer story behind it belongs to its parent, Kyowa Co., Ltd. (long known as Kyowa Seiko), which has been machining for the watch industry since the 1960s. That inheritance explains nearly everything a buyer notices in the metal: the exactness of the cases, the obsession with edges, and the decision to build watches that can be taken apart and made new. Drag through the timeline, or read it as a list.

MINASE’s range is easier to understand by architecture than by name. There are three ways the brand builds a case, plus a family of art dials that sit on top of them. Once you know which architecture appeals, the choice of collection usually follows. Every dimension below is MINASE’s own figure, quoted the way MINASE quotes it: width, then length including the lugs, then thickness including the crystal. Third-party figures are sometimes measured differently, which is why you will see other numbers online.

Case-in-case: the watches that float

The signature construction. MINASE builds an inner case that holds the movement, a curved dial and an index ring, then encloses all of it in a second, differently shaped outer case, with parts cut to drawing on the order of a thousandth of a millimeter. The effect is a round dial that appears to hover inside a square or faceted shell. Five current collections use it.

SEVEN WINDOWS (37.4 × 46.5 × 13 mm) is the fullest expression: a six-faceted square case with the crown side split in two, which by MINASE’s count makes seven sapphire windows in all. Light enters from the sides and back as well as the front, so the dial changes as you turn your wrist. It is also offered with the Yuki-hira dial, a traditional hammered pattern evoking a snowfield, formed by electroforming rather than printing.

FIVE WINDOWS Mid (32 × 40.3 × 11.6 mm) carries the original 2011 concept in a smaller case. MINASE describes the idea as admiring a Japanese garden from inside a box, after the yukimi shōji, a snow-viewing screen with a glazed lower panel. The brand is explicit that it is designed for any wrist, regardless of age or gender.

DIVIDO (40.6 × 40.6 × 11 mm) splits the case into upper and lower halves with four lugs that rise above the case itself; the whole exterior disassembles. From the front, the structure and movement show in glimpses at the top, bottom and sides.

HORIZON Mid (36.8 × 45.6 × 12 mm) and HORIZON (40.1 × 52 × 11.8 mm) are built around a strongly domed crystal cut and polished on both faces from solid sapphire, so that from the side it has the tension of a water surface. The hand pinions sit higher than the case corners. HORIZON Mid is on our site today; the full-size HORIZON is not currently listed, so ask us if it is the one you want.

Clamping: the jeweler’s setting

In 2023 MINASE borrowed from jewelry. On URUGA 42 (42 × 48 × 10.2 mm) and URUGA 31 (31 × 39 × 9.9 mm), four heavily faceted clasps hold the case and a slightly curved crystal together the way prongs hold a stone. The dials carry a horizontal gradation taken from the light on the Minase River, and the indices are cut obliquely, which MINASE likens to the front of a kimono. Luna Arch (30.5 × 37.1 × 8.7 mm) replaces the clasps with a single streamlined bezel that grips the crystal from above, leaving a gap through which the sapphire is visible from the side. Luna Arch is quartz: a Japanese Cal. 2036 with a battery life of about three years. Everything else in the range is mechanical.

MASTER CRAFT: the origin, reworked

The MASTER CRAFT line is where MINASE began. The new J3 reinterprets the 2008 M3 in a slimmer 37.4 mm case, 9.9 mm thick, with a Light Sand Dial, sharp-cut applied markers and quick-change 18 mm straps. It is the most direct way into the brand’s finishing, and it is now open for regular order in the United States, with delivery in 10 to 14 business days.

The JAPAN ART COLLECTION

Three dial disciplines, each applied to an existing case. MAKI-E, on SEVEN WINDOWS and FIVE WINDOWS Mid, is a picture built in lacquer: metal powder sprinkled into wet urushi, then lacquered and polished, a process MINASE says takes several months per dial. SHIBO-URUSHI, on DIVIDO, is abstract: lacquer thickened with egg white sets into a deliberate relief, is colored, then ground back flat, so no two dials match. YUSAI, on DIVIDO, SEVEN WINDOWS and FIVE WINDOWS Mid, is painted by hand by Towa TAKAYA using pigments she makes herself. These pieces are made one at a time; they are not numbered limited editions.

A word on movements, because it is the first thing informed buyers ask. MINASE does not make its own movements, and it says so on every specification sheet. The KT7002 and KT8001 are Swiss bases that MINASE finishes and decorates; the J3 uses a Japanese Miyota. What MINASE makes is everything around the movement, and that is where the money goes.

Four questions, one or two answers. The picker weighs the same things we ask in the showroom: the size of your wrist, what you most want to look at, whether you need a mechanical movement, and roughly what you intend to spend. It ends in a piece you can order today, at today’s price.

MINASE prices move with three things: the collection, what the watch is worn on, and the dial. Within a collection, a bracelet costs more than a strap because the MINASE bracelet is itself a finished object, every link polished and built to MINASE’s MORE system. “Stone-clamped” models add diamonds. The art dials sit in a band of their own, because each one is made by hand over weeks or months. The table below reads its figures live from our store, so it is always current.

What “made to order” means for your timing

MINASE says its watches are basically made to order, and that when a model is not in stock there is a waiting period that varies by model. In practice there are four timings. Pieces we hold in New York are marked in stock on their pages and dispatch within one to two business days. The J3 is open for regular order and delivers in 10 to 14 business days. Other made-to-order pieces take six to eight weeks. The art dials take longest of all, four to six months from a confirmed order; an art piece is confirmed with a 50% deposit or paid in full, depending on how far it is made to your specification. We give ranges rather than promises, because the work happens by hand in Akita.

What importing actually involves

You can order from MINASE’s own webshops abroad, and many Americans have. It is worth reading their terms first. MINASE’s European webshop tells U.S. customers that import taxes are not included, that no exchange or return is possible for North American orders, and that delivery can take one to two months. MINASE’s global site in Japan now also sells online in U.S. dollars. Either way, the watch arrives as an import and you are the importer.

That matters more than it used to. The U.S. de minimis exemption, which let low-value parcels in duty-free, ended on August 29, 2025. For a watch at MINASE’s prices this changes little, since the exemption stopped at $800 and a MINASE never qualified; it does mean that a replacement strap now attracts duty too. On the watch itself you pay duty on arrival, usually collected by the carrier together with a clearance fee, before the parcel is released. The rate has changed more than once since 2025, so the estimate below is dated and you can edit it.

Marketplaces are the third route. Pre-owned and grey-market MINASE listings appear on the large watch marketplaces, often below retail. Some are good buys. Before you commit, ask who will service the watch, what its history is, and what happens if it arrives needing attention, because those answers belong to the seller, not to MINASE or to us.

Our showroom is a private room at 119 West 57th Street, Suite 1219, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, and it works by appointment, so the table is yours for the visit. Most people arrive with one collection in mind and leave having changed it. That is not salesmanship; it is what happens when three architectures sit side by side.

The first thing we do is put the watches in daylight. A Sallaz-polished surface is flat enough to reflect a straight line without bending it, and it only proves itself in motion: tilt a SEVEN WINDOWS under the window and the reflection crosses the case in a single clean sweep. (Our guide to zaratsu and Sallaz polishing explains why.) Then we compare. A case-in-case SEVEN WINDOWS, a clamped URUGA and the partitioned DIVIDO wear very differently from their measurements, and ten minutes on the wrist settles what a week of photographs cannot.

If a bracelet model is right, we size it to your wrist before you leave. If the watch you want is in New York, you can take it home that day. If it is made to order, we place the order with MINASE, confirm the timing, and keep you informed until it arrives. We carry other independent makers too, from Europe and Japan, and are glad to show them, but no one will steer you away from the watch you came for.

Warranty and service. A MINASE bought from Tempus Takumi is looked after here. We handle all warranty service domestically, from New York, so a watch that needs attention is dealt with here rather than shipped overseas by you. Keep the documents that come with the watch, and call us before sending anything anywhere.

The long view: MORE. MINASE’s most unusual promise is structural. Its patented MORE system (MINASE Original Rebuilding Equation), inspired by kumiki-zaiku, traditional Japanese interlocking woodwork, lets the entire exterior, down to the links of the bracelet, be taken apart, re-polished or given new parts, and rebuilt. A mirror surface will collect hairlines like any polish. The point of MORE is that the finish can be renewed decades from now rather than merely protected, and for a watch bought here, that work is arranged through us in New York. MINASE speaks of watches to be treasured for more than a hundred years; that is an aspiration and an after-sales philosophy, not a warranty, but the construction is built to honor it.

Movements. The KT7002 and KT8001 are built on Swiss ETA and Sellita bases, and the J3 on a Japanese Miyota 90S5, all of them families that watchmakers know well. That is a quiet advantage over the decades a MINASE is meant to last. MINASE does not publish a power-reserve figure for its KT calibres, so we do not quote one; the J3 is rated at about 42 hours.

Straps and bracelets. Most collections come on leather, rubber or the MORE bracelet, and we can change between them at the showroom. The J3 is the exception: it uses a one-touch quick-change system on 18 mm straps, so you can swap it yourself in seconds. MINASE also makes its own strap line, MS Strap, introduced in 2024.

Water and everyday care. Every current MINASE is rated to 5 atm. That means rain, splashes and hand-washing, not swimming, diving or the shower. Wipe a polished case with a soft, dry cloth; keep it away from hard surfaces when you take it off, since a Sallaz plane shows a scratch more readily than a brushed one; and bring it to us if the crystal or case takes a knock.

It depends on what you want to pay for, so it is worth being precise.

What you are paying for is hand-time and construction. MINASE says a single part can take a seasoned craftsman up to 90 minutes at the Sallaz plate, and it polishes not just the visible flanks but the structural parts of the case, the indices and every bracelet link. The case-in-case architecture asks for tolerances of a thousandth of a millimeter. And MORE commits the brand to rebuilding the exterior for as long as the watch exists. None of that appears on a specification sheet, and all of it is visible in the metal.

What you are not paying for is a manufacture movement, a dive watch, or a certificate. MINASE’s movements are finished Swiss and Japanese bases, the range is rated to 5 atm, and there is no chronometer certification. Nor is a MINASE an investment: pre-owned prices tracked by public indices sit well below retail, as they do for nearly every independent maker. Buy one to wear.

The Grand Seiko question comes up in almost every conversation, and it is a fair one. Grand Seiko made the word zaratsu famous and deserves the reputation: it applies distortion-free polishing at genuine scale, and it makes its own movements, with a service network to match. MINASE is the opposite pole, a very small workshop that applies the same Swiss-origin discipline to the entire exterior, builds each case in layers, and designs it to be rebuilt. They are two sincere answers to the same idea of Japanese finishing, and many collectors own both. If movement provenance matters most to you, that points one way; if you want the case itself to be the object, it points the other.

Three pieces across the range show how that value scales, from the J3 at the door to a maki-e dial that took months to make.

The quickest way to choose a MINASE is to hold three of them. Book an appointment at 57th Street, call or text us on (212) 257-3330, or write to info@tempustakumi.com with your wrist size and the collections you are considering; we will answer with what is in New York and what can be ordered. Coming next in The Journal: the MASTER CRAFT J3, explained, and MINASE and Grand Seiko as two philosophies of the Japanese mirror.