Casio celebrates the 35th anniversary of the original G-Shock with style that would put even the most self-indulgent Swiss brands to shame: by launching the solid 18ct gold, 70,000-dollar Casio G-Shock G-D5000-9JR ‘Solid Gold’, running for around 500-times the cost of your average G-Shock. Available in just 35 numbered examples, the G-D5000-9JR is destined to be as heavy on your wrist, as it is on your eyes and your wallet.

Have You Ever…?

Have you ever seen a solid 18ct gold cased watch, with a gold case, bezel and bracelet, get catapulted into a block of concrete? Head-on? In slow motion? And then get smacked hard from behind by a massive, flinging hammer? Two minutes ago I too would have said “No, I haven’t!” – but now I have, and I’m glad I did… And best of all, you can too, just click or tap on the YouTube video above to witness the glory of an all-gold G-Shock finally being put to the test.

I say “finally,” because just three years ago Casio debuted its “Dream Project DW-5000 Ibe Special (video here),” the first, solid 18ct gold Casio G-Shock. That remained a concept piece, exhibited at BaselWorld and elsewhere around the world, but it was never commercially available, nor did we ever see footage of it being tested like plebeian G-Shocks are tested…

For the Casio G-Shock G-D5000-9JR ‘Solid Gold’, we see that Casio has focused on ensuring that all 35 pieces in this truly special edition of G-Shock watches will work, function and endure like any real G-Shock should… Even if most all of these watches will be safe queens, rather than beaters. I’ll gloss over the fact that the video shows a gold G-Shock with the positive display of the Dream Project being tested, and not a watch with the inverse display of the G-D5000-9JR, although it is this freshly announced piece with which the video ends. Just when you thought Casio PR back in Japan couldn’t put another twist on things.

Rendering an all-metal or, I should say, “Full Metal” G-Shock perform to the same incredible levels of shock resistance is no longer a hardship for Casio, as they convinced the world about the relentless durability of their metal case and metal bracelet equipped watches with the “Poor Man’s Steel Daytona,” the highly coveted GMW-B 5000 D-1 that we covered here from BaselWorld 2018.

I could only find a Japanese official press release for the solid 18ct gold G-D5000-9JR and so I am going by the info I could find in it, using my jedi guidance through the nuances of Google translated Japanese. The first oddity is the name: “金無垢” literally translated stands for “pure gold” in English, but my jedi powers are telling me that I presume “pure” in this instance refers to the exclusive use of gold, as in “all gold” or “solid gold” – not to the purity of the metal.

Then things get easier, cause the universal language of mathematics urges to my assistance: case size of the Casio G-Shock G-D5000-9JR ‘Solid Gold’ will be43.2 millimeters in diameter, 50 millimeters lug to lug, and 13.0 millimeters in thickness. The case will be water resistance to a depth of 200 meters, making the G-D5000-9JR a member of the exclusive club of solid gold, 200-meter-resistant watches… That come on a solid gold bracelet. Pretty cool, I think – although I admit this feat probably won’t impress everyone equally.

Enjoying the shock resistant protection of the solid 18ct gold case is a rather traditional, albeit no less capable module, with an LED backlit, negative screen – the Dream Project had a regular black on white screen, an easy way to tell the one-of-a-kind gold G-Shock from 2015 apart from this commercially available variant –, displaying indications of its “full auto calendar,” alarm, battery change warning, timer, stopwatch, 38-city time zone and, of course, the current time.

There is no word on Bluetooth or GPS functionality in the Casio G-Shock G-D5000-9JR ‘Solid Gold’, but those thirty-five well-heeled G-Shock collectors to own one of these will surely appreciate that Tough Solar charging is part of the package, along with Multi Band 6 terrestrial radio wave reception from 6 transmission stations worldwide for the automatic time correction and calibration… This, as per normal, is available in Japan, North America, the United Kingdom, Europe and China.

Does anybody give a flying rat’s bottom about all that though? Probably not, and that’s all good. What we are looking at here is a birthday present by G-Shock to G-Shock itself… And although they say that reservations – i.e. the online stampede – for any one of the 35 pieces will begin on May 15, 2019 on this website, I wouldn’t be surprised if Casio ended up reserving all for the most valued G-Shock collectors and friends of the brand…

…But only if they are willing to pick it up in Japan. That’s right: although the G-D5000-9JR might know the time in 38 different cities around the world, Casio is so hung up on ignoring the rest of the world, that they haven’t even bothered officially sharing the news globally, let alone planning on bringing any one of these pieces to places where planet Earth’s rest of the G-Shock-loving population resides. Pieces will be handed over to their fortunate future owners at select Japanese G-Shock boutiques, a list of which is to be determined…

They can take their time though because, again, registrations for the G-D5000-9JR open up on May 15, 2019, while the first pieces are planned to begin shipping in December, 2019, almost an entire year from now… at which point in time this 35th anniversary edition should actually be the 36th anniversary edition – but again, who cares, right?

Price for the Casio G-Shock G-D5000-9JR ‘Solid Gold’ in solid 18ct gold is 7.7 million Yen, or right around $70,000 at current exchange rate and you can learn more about it, eventually, at g-shock.jp.