Seiko 7A38 - by the numbers

I’m a little surprised that nobody has asked the question of me yet: Why I gave the website the title I did ? 

From my personal viewpoint, first and foremost it’s a Blog. Having fellow 7Axx enthusiasts on the Forum is a big added bonus. 

Well, the rationale behind the title most definitely still stands ....

But due to the perceived (now readily apparent) shortcomings of Webs template software, I've since had to rethink my original plans.

To quote Robbie Burns: The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley (often go awry). 

What I'd originally written in the first post was this:

Seiko7A38 at February 2, 2012 at 2:35 PM

I intend to write a series of articles on every single Seiko 7A38-xxxx model - starting at the very beginning with 7A38-6000, right through to the 7A38-7295. I plan on doing it at the rate of a couple per month, so it will take me a while. Minor understatement. 

 

In those articles, I’ll try to detail everything there is to know about each one, to help act as a Buyer’s Guide. Hopefully, in the process I’ll be able to include photos of the best condition, most original example I know of in collectors’ hands (not necessarily my own; there are still quite a significant number missing from my collection, particularly in the lower 7A38-60xx range). The best photos of that watch will be earmarked for future use on the Seiko 7A master database: http://www.seiko7a.com/

In parallel to the Blog articles, I’d like us to try to keep this thread going (so it could potentially run for years).

Ideally in the same 7A38-xxxx case model order. I don’t want to have to micro-manage it, to keep it ‘in order’,

but some of you may have quite a long wait before you can post photos of your 7A38-7270’s or 7A38-7280’s in it. 

This part still holds true, incidentally ....

In the near future, I'll be sending out more invitations to other 7Axx collectors, some of whom I know can help fill those gaps in the model line up. Hopefully they will join us and contribute. If they decline, then all I can do is ask their permission to use their photos, which I may have already right-clicked and saved from elsewhere.

As you may have read elsewhere (in the discussions about the site) ....

What I'd originally wanted to do, in tweaking Webs template to better suit our needs, was to remove the R.H. sidebar from the Forum (at post level only). Using CSS coding (the only option available) to modify Webs template, it is impossible to remove it from just the Forum. So I elected to remove it from all pages - as a 'workaround'. In doing so, I have made something of a rod for my own back. In unintentionally  removing the R.H. sidebar from the Blog pages, I now have no effective means of indexing any future articles - including the series I'd planned 'Seiko 7A38 - by the numbers'. 

I'm also learning more, on a daily basis, what you can (and can't) do with the Forum part of the template package. 

As I've written before, I still think that, compared to other free forum software, it's pretty rudimentary and unsophisticated.

I've yet to find anywhere in the site management module, anything vaguely resembling a control panel where a Site Owner / Admin can modify even the most basic Forum parameters. Everything appears to have been pre-set by whoever designed this package. 

However, what it does - it does well. The search facility works better on this than some other watch forums. 

Try searching on any full Cal./Case model numbers - e.g. 7A38-7270 on the other 'bigger' UK watch forums.

Your search will return either lots of spurious (other 7A38 model) results - or nothing at all. Now try it on here. 

Whereas I still quite fancy the idea of a 7A38 mega-topic, which might ultimately turn out to be the longest anywhere on the subject,

I've also been pondering, at some considerable length, on the practical issues of managing such a thread. 

If as I'd originally planned, to start at 7A38-6000, and eventually work right the way through to 7A38-7295, in case number order ....

once we'd effectively cut off, and moved onto the next model number in the sequence, it might unintentionally exclude any newcomers from posting in that thread. If they did subsequently - their posts would effectively be 'out of order'. I did a couple of little experiments yesterday, using my alter ego 'Testing-123' (the majority of those 'test' posts have since been deleted). What I found (within the current limitations of the forum software) is that it's possible to move an entire topic between forum sections. However, there is no means of moving a post between different topics / threads, nor re-ordering posts within a given topic / thread - the only available option, which I'd discovered a few days ago, it that it is possible, and all too easy, for me as Site Owner to delete posts from a topic.

From my own personal experience on other watch forums, I know that having your post deleted can be somewhat demotivating. 

Were it to have got up and running, there was another potential pitfall awaiting the 'Seiko 7A38 - by the numbers' mega-thread. 

In a word - Bandwidth. 

During my little experiments yesterday, I discovered that a forum topic throws a new page after 20 posts.

Not an unreasonable number, but there is no way of changing that to say 15 or 10,  should the need arise.

Neither does there appear to be any limit to the number of photos you can embed (remotely hosted in Photobucket) in a single post,

not that I've managed to find so far, anyway - and no means of setting any limits for forum members. Which may be a good thing. 

Can you see where I'm heading ?

At 20 posts per page, and with an unlimited number of photos per post, we'd have been lucky to get the first page to load !! 

So a thread that potentially could easily have racked up 200-500 posts and probably been a minimum of 10 or 20 pages long -

Do you think anybody ever contemplating reading it in the future would have the patience to even turn to the second page ?

Me neither ! 

So ....

this, which I had originally intended ultimately to become probably the longest-running thread on this forum, and possibly the most epic tome on the subject of the Seiko 7A38, ever written in the history of cyberspace - is sadly about to come to a very premature close. 

But we're still going to try doing it 'By the numbers'. 

Instead of writing separate articles in the Blog section (which I wouldn't now be able to index, the way things stand at the moment) ....

I'm going to start a series of threads, in a newly-created forum sub-section, whose titles begin with a 7A38-xxxx number - for each individual model. Incidentally, as Site Owner / Admin, my own user ID appears to have an infinite editing time-out window - so some of my posts may be VERY long, and indeed, end up looking rather more like Blog entries than typical forum posts.

Where there are multiple case material finishes for one 7A38-xxxx model, I may (or may not) yet decide to give each a seperate topic.

For example, the 7A38-7270. I think there are enough members who own the stainless black-faced variant to give that it's own topic.

The two tone and gold-plated versions, can also have their own individual topics, whereas it may make more sense to roll the less-common (but related) 7A38-727A and 7A38-727B into one topic.

However, there are other variants which have multiple case finishes within the same 7A38-xxxx model number which may better suit being rolled into one combined topic - for reasons (of economy) which will hopefully become apparent in due course. 

My plan being, that in the future, anyone running a google search on any particular 7A38-xxxx model number (once this site has been officially submitted to Google's search engines), will find these properly titled threads on this forum appearing fairly high up in, if not at the top of, their search results. What I'm getting at, in 6 months time, when presented with the choice between ....

a thread on a certain UK watch forum entitled: Strap Suggestions For A Dinky Diver, Anybody ? (now somewhat devoid of photos)

or one on this forum, entitled: 7A38-6000 SAA039J - Stainless small size 'Diver / Panda' (absolutely stuffed with facts and photos),

Which will you choose to read ? 

I'll start the first few off in number order - but so that the rest of the membership don't have to wait around for their turns, I'll chuck in a few others. Each individual thread can be then left open ad nauseum. Please don't worry about posting photos of your own watch, even if it's a 'bit of a beater'. It'll be good to have a varied spectrum of examples in all conditions. However, if you know that your watch has non-original parts on it, please state so, when posting a photo - it might save me having to point it out for the benefit of others. 

All I ask besides, is PLEASE make sure that when you post, that you are posting in the correct case model number thread.

Remember - I can't move your post (to the correct thread, if it exists at that stage) if you do get it wrong - all I can do is DELETE it. 

The first of those series of threads: 7A38-6000 SAA039J - Stainless small size 'Diver / Panda' is now well under way.

See: http://www.seiko7a38.com/apps/forums/topics/show/7203392-7a38-6000-saa039j-stainless-small-size-diver-panda-

Please do not comment in the thread unless you can add something to it - i.e. contribute ....

Or of course, if you've got a 7A38-6000 that you'd like to share with us - please be my guest. 

PS - Otherwise, enjoy the read. 

Those of you who've ventured into the 7A38-xxxx Model Specific section will have seen, I'd started off a dozen or so separate threads, covering the 7A38-6000 through -7000 range. I was hoping they would all have been completed by now, but I've gradually fallen behind with my own self-imposed schedule - in fact I've written nothing at all in two of them. Perhaps I was being a tad ambitious.  

The intended purpose of these threads (as was my original planned series of blog articles) is to provide a point of reference to anyone considering buying (or for that matter, selling) any particular 7A38-xxxx and ultimately to become - THE #1 Resource for Seiko 7A38s.

It seems the threads are already being cited in that context. 

This morning, a 7A38-6109 came up on eBay in the States: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/130672961103

The first line of the seller's description reads:

I GOOGLED THIS MODEL NUMBER AND HERE'S A LINK I FOUND WHERE SOMEONE SPOKE IN DEPTH ABOUT THIS MODEL ....

http://www.seiko7a38.com/apps/forums/topics/show/7203846-7a38-6109-saa114j-mid-size-gold-plated-blingy-diver-us-market-model-

Do you get royalties for that?   Seriously though, it can't be bad for the site traffic.