Casio unveils the MRG-D5000: a £67,000 sapphire G-Shock limited to 20 pieces
Casio announced on 1 October 2026 the most expensive production G-Shock it has yet made: the MRG-D5000, a limited edition of 20 pieces whose outer case and bezel are made entirely from blue sapphire crystal, priced at £67,000 in the United Kingdom.
What Casio has announced
The MRG-D5000 is the first G-Shock to achieve a shock-resistant structure using components made with blue sapphire crystal — a material chosen for its hardness and colour, but difficult to protect because it cracks rather than flexing. Casio's solution is a screwless, multi-component assembly it calls the MR-G Multi-Guard Structure. Rather than drilling screw holes that would create fracture points, separate sapphire pieces interlock and share the load, an approach inspired by traditional Japanese timber joinery. The watch still meets the standards the name implies: shock resistance, 200 metres of water resistance, solar charging and radio-controlled timekeeping.
The familiar square case and brick-pattern dial — descendants of the 1983 original — remain, the dial now finished in blue vapour deposition with 24-carat gold lettering. At 16.45 mm, the case is deliberately thicker than the 12.9 mm titanium MR-G square, making room for the sapphire structure. The DLC-coated Grade 5 titanium caseback carries its own sapphire insert and is engraved 'DREAM PROJECT', along with an individual number from 1/20 to 20/20; each of the twenty sapphire cases is assembled by hand by a single senior technician at Casio's Yamagata facility.
UK pricing is £67,000. The watch is listed at $80,000 in the United States and ¥11,000,000 in Japan, where it goes on sale on 1 December, allocated by lottery. Casio's US site is taking registrations of interest, and each major market will receive only a few of the twenty pieces.
From a stage in 2017 to the Yamagata workshop
The watch closes a long-running chapter. In November 2017, at the G-Shock 35th-anniversary event at Madison Square Garden in New York, brand creator Kikuo Ibe showed the audience a concept for a G-Shock made from sapphire crystal — with the admission that he had not yet worked out how to make one survive as a G-Shock. 'This challenge isn't easy,' he said at the time. It has taken the best part of a decade to solve.
The sapphire idea sits in Casio's 'Dream Project' tradition of conceptual G-Shocks: the solid-gold G-D5000-9JR, a Japan-only run of 35 pieces released in 2019 at around $70,000, and the gold G-D001, a one-off that raised $400,050 for charity at Phillips in 2023. The sapphire watch is not billed as a third Dream Project — Ibe has since retired — but the caseback engraving is an explicit tribute to him.
It does not stand alone, either. Casio presents the wider launch under the name Blue Rose Project, and two companion watches sit beneath the flagship:
- MRG-B5000SA-2 — a 500-piece edition with two 2-carat sapphires set into the case, arriving in the MR-G line's thirtieth year.
- GMW-B5000SB-1A2 — a more attainable full-metal square, with four blue sapphires set into its bezel.
Both companions are due later in the year, and neither carries anything like the flagship's scarcity.
What it means if you are buying or selling
A run of twenty pieces will barely touch the market. Casio's most restricted watches have historically traded strongly on the secondary market — the one-off gold G-D001 is the clearest example — and any of the twenty pieces that surface on the secondary market would be likely to command a premium over the £67,000 retail figure. For most collectors, this one will be admired from a distance.
The realistic route into the Blue Rose Project is the pair beneath it: at 500 pieces, the MRG-B5000SA-2 is the more obtainable of the jewellery-grade pair, while the GMW-B5000SB-1A2 offers the design at a fraction of the cost. Watches at this level reward the same things as any other — condition, completeness and provenance — and the first weeks after a launch are usually the most active for both buyers and sellers.
For owners of existing MR-G watches, limited-edition G-Shocks or earlier Dream Project pieces, the attention is a reminder that scarcity has value, and that the value turns on the specific watch: its reference, its condition and what comes with it. Our valuations are free, take minutes, and are set against current market conditions rather than a launch headline.
Sources
- Casio — Casio to Release MR-G Crafted in Blue Sapphire Crystal (1 October 2026) — www.casio.com/intl/news/2026/1001-mrg-d5000/
- Esquire UK — G-Shock Just Unveiled a £67,000 Blue Sapphire Watch, Its Most Expensive Ever (1 October 2026) — www.esquire.com/uk/watches/a73969400/g-shock-mrg-d5000-blue-sapphire/
- Hodinkee — Hands-On: G-SHOCK Reveals the MRG-D5000 'Blue Rose Project' In Sapphire — www.hodinkee.com/articles/g-shock-reveals-the-mrg-d5000-blue-rose-project-in-sapphire
- G-Central — G-Shock completes its sapphire concept with MRG-D5000 (1 October 2026) — www.g-central.com/g-shock-completes-its-sapphire-concept-with-blue-rose-projects-mrg-d5000-links-and-info-for-mrg-b5000sa-2-and-mrg-d5000/
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