Tissot Seastar 2000 Professional Powermatic 80 T120.607.11.041.00

Imagen: Tissot, web oficial

The storyWhy this reference matters

The Seastar 2000 Professional is the big brother in a family that has been in the catalogue since the fifties, and its number follows the same curious logic as the rest: not metres, feet. Two thousand feet is 600 metres, just as the Seastar 1000's thousand was 300. It's a hangover from the days when divers were sold with one eye on the American market and depth was advertised in the unit that read clearly over there.

What really separates this watch from the rest of the range isn't the depth, it's the stamp. It meets ISO 6425, the standard that defines what may call itself a diver's watch: legibility in total darkness at 25 centimetres, a graduated unidirectional bezel, resistance to salt water, thermal shock and magnetism, and — this is the expensive part — individual testing of every unit rather than a sample from the batch. Very few watches at this price go through that.

The helium escape valve at nine is the other professional nod. It exists for saturation diving, when a diver spends days in a pressurised bell breathing helium mixes: the gas works its way into the case and, on decompression, pushes the crystal out from the inside. The valve lets it escape. That almost no owner will ever go saturation diving doesn't spoil the fun — it's engineering you buy for what it stands for.

SpecificationsThe numbers, in one table

IdentificationHow to tell it apart

Forty-six millimetres of 316L steel, 16.25 mm thick, 206 grams, 22 mm lugs: it's big and makes no attempt to hide it. This reference has a graded blue dial with an engraved wave pattern, a black ceramic unidirectional bezel with deep notches, a domed and bevelled sapphire with the anti-reflective coating underneath, and a date at six.

The giveaway is on the left flank: the helium escape valve at nine, which the Seastar 1000 doesn't have. If the watch hasn't got one and somebody is selling it to you as a 2000 Professional, something is wrong. The crown screws down and is guarded, and the clasp has an extension to clear a suit.

Since 2026 there's also a 44 mm version, 15.29 mm thick, with the same credentials — 600 metres, ISO 6425 and a helium valve — in deep blue, orange and grey. If the listing says 44, you aren't looking at this 46 mm reference.

CollectingWhat collectors check

Size is the filter. Forty-six millimetres with more than 16 of thickness and 200 grams is not a watch for a slim wrist, and at launch that was the most repeated criticism. The arrival of the 44 mm in 2026 confirms the message reached Le Locle, and it's worth bearing in mind if you buy the 46 with a view to selling it on in a few years.

Check the valve: it should be clean, with no corrosion around the screw, because it's a way in for water if anyone has been at it. Then the edges of the ceramic bezel, the alignment of the zero with twelve, and side play in the bracelet. A diver that has genuinely been in salt water and never once been rinsed in fresh shows it in the dull shine of the clasp.

If you're going to dive with it, the certification doesn't excuse you from maintenance: gaskets get replaced and the watch gets pressure tested as often as your watchmaker says. Keep the certificate from that test, because it's the only thing that turns a spec sheet into a real guarantee on the day you sell.

Common questionsWhat people ask us about this reference

Keep readingWhere to go from here

Close relativesThe ones it gets confused with