Founded in 1960 with the sole intention of challenging the idea that Swiss watchmaking was the be-all and end-all of the watchmaking industry, Grand Seiko has endeavored to create some of the most technically astute and wonderfully crafted timepieces possible. Six years after their launch, in 1966, Grand Seiko came out with their own certification, the "Grand Seiko Standard." With a daily deviation of between -3/+5 seconds, it was more accurate than Swiss chronometer testing, which was -1/+10 seconds per day. Following this new standard, two even more accurate standards were created, which Grand Seiko decided to bring to life by launching the VFA collection (Very Finely Adjusted) in 1967. Created under highly rigorous conditions and regulated to within -2/+2 seconds per day, these watches were blisteringly accurate for their time and even came with the guarantee of accuracy to within a minute a month for the first two years of ownership - extremely impressive even by today's standards. An important piece of Grand Seiko's original mission, these VFA timepieces are extremely rare on account of their short three-year production run and relatively lengthy life causing them to be lost to the sands of time.

Perhaps one of Grand Seiko's most historically significant watches, the VFA demonstrated the Japanese watchmaker's determination to challenge the Swiss status quo and create objectively better watches than the Swiss were for far less money - still a pillar of the brand's modern mission.