Seiko 7A38 - by the numbers

Seiko7A38 at November 18, 2018 at 11:30 AM

This brown coated 7A38-6020, in average worn condition, was listed earlier this afternoon, by an Italian eBay seller, with a typically over-optimistic 'pie-in-the-sky' Buy-it-Now price of 590 Euros (or the option to make a much lower offer). This example is allegedly slightly larger diameter than the norm @ 43.50mm !

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/153266332420

The speed with which that brown-coated 7A38-6020 sold, yesterday evening, less than 4 hours after it was listed, caught me by surprise. However, it transpires the reason it sold so quickly is that it didn't go for anything like the Italian eBay seller's 'pie-in-the-sky' Buy-it-Now price of 590 Euros.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/153266332420

WatchCount.com's Look-Up tool reveals it sold for a lower offer of 345 Euros.

The eBay Purchase History shows that was the only offer tendered:

I'm posting this as a somewhat belated and Post Facto comment on a brown coated 7A38-6020 which sold at the beginning of December. A couple of days ago, I posted a WTB advert in the Members Trading Area on behalf of new forum member M_L (Matthew). During our email exchanges he sent me a link to the one which had sold recently, that he bemoaned having missed - and this frankly rather amateurish and slightly nauseating YouTube video, uploaded by Spencer Klein:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Bt51d7HVVY

The 7A38-6020 in question appears briefly between 00:07 and 00:11 seconds in and again between 02:50 and 03:45 minutes in. Not that you actually get to see it particularly well.  Here's where Spencer subsequently posted it on his website:

http://www.kleinvintagewatchrepair.com/sold-watches/seiko-7a38-6020-speedtimer-guigiaro-designed-amp-fully-restored

I do hate to call B/S, but I will. Going back to Spencer's YouTube video ....

'A Crazy Labour of Love' ? Don't make me laugh - he just swapped a few parts.

He's another of these misinformed morons that calls anything mid-eighties Seiko, that's a slightly quirky design 'Giugiaro'. He can't even pronounce the man's name properly, fer Chris'sake. And like the 7A38-7140 it isn't a Giugiaro design !

I haven't finished yet. Let's talk about those NOS parts ....

'New old stock crystal - those are really hard to find'. Oh really ? Try HERE. Filipino eBay seller seikoparts14 (a.k.a. Tony Plaza) has been listing them on eBay almost continuously since February 2015 - and still is to this day !!

The NOS rotating ring (bezel to you and me) is in all probability this one:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/263190797904

Then there's that rare as rocking horse droppings NOS Z1207H bracelet. Hmm.

It seems I'd previously overlooked posting about it in this thread, but Filipino eBay seller Tony Plaza listed a couple of them, back in August 2015.

IIRC, they were $89.99 or $99.99 apiece. I know I grabbed one a bit sharpish. Seeing as he'd already had a couple of brown-coated 7A38-6020's pass through his hands, I suspect it was very likely Spencer Klein who bought the second one.

Back to the YouTube video and 'wear on the mid-case'. I've also underlined that in red on Spencer's For Sale description. Yes there is some serious wear there. Download the photos (full size) and zoom in on the sides and ends of the watch case. Not only worn through to the black chrome plating, but down to the base metal in a few places. So take a tatty well-worn example, like my original beater ....

Throw some NOS parts at it (which would take me all of 20 minutes to fit) ....

Now sell it in your Christmas Sale for $675 $575 to the first gullible mug punter.

Uh, Oh. I just flicked back over to the previous page, to copy the eBay link for that NOS bezel and got a horrible sense of Déjà Vu ....

Seiko7A38 at March 11, 2018 at 5:17 AM

Please excuse the rant, but I've just seen something that annoyed me. 

I've made no secret of my loathing of social media and the wannabe experts that frequent it - especially those who spread misinformation to their fanboys in an effort to score more likes. I just did a quick google search on 7A38-6020, and came across these 4 images of quite a decent example of the brown-coated version. It looks like it may have benefitted from a NOS bracelet (compared to the coating wear on the case).

http://imgur.com/r/JapaneseWatches/g5zZY

The page is titled:

One of the lesser-known Giuigiaro designs - Seiko 7A38-6020

The reason it might be 'lesser known' (to you) is because it's not a Giugiaro design - you ignorant Fg Moron ! 

Well, what a surprise (not) - same case-back serial # 4O5611. 

Paul,

Thank you for the extensive information in regards to this. I greatly appreciate the education and information. I am certain I will come across one eventually.

Yup. I think you 'dodged a bullet' in missing that one, Matthew. O.K., so the NOS bezel and bracelet are admittedly nice to have - and a good selling point.

But I know that if I'd bought that watch (as a newbie), my eyes would forever be catching glimpses and then drawn to that badly worn watch case and pushers.

I'm sure, given patience, you will find a nice genuine original example. But you'll likely pay a hefty price for a really good one. Thing is, knowing exactly what you're looking at when you first see it. I can remember I studied the Italian eBay seller's photos for all of about 10 seconds, before I hit the Buy-it-Now button on my second one - and then swallowed hard, in realization at how much I'd just spent.

This well-worn and somewhat non-original brown coated 7A38-6020 was listed this morning, by an Italian eBay seller, as a 7-day auction, with a risibly over-optimistic opening bid price of 400 Euros. The seller claims not to know anything about the watch's service history, but it's obviously been fitted with a replacement movement at some point. The day / date wheels are silver / white, with black lettering, whereas of course, this model should have black background day / date wheels with white lettering. The original and unique 'tuning fork' style sub-dial hands were presumably damaged during the movement swap, because they've been replaced with plain yellowy orange stick hands off another 7Axx.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/173719323753

SEIKO 7A38-6020

IN WORKING CONDITION

NO BOX NO PAPERS

DON’T KNOW SERVICE HISTORY

Another brown-coated 7A38-6020, in average worn condition, was listed this afternoon by an Australian eBay seller, with a 'pie-in-the-sky' Buy-it-Now price of $999.95 Au., or the option to make a more sensible much lower offer. It comes supplied with a spare NOS Seiko p/n 310W68GN00 crystal. Incidentally, the seller is also listing a 8123-6280, effectively the small non-chrono' version of the watch, which I mentioned on the first page of this thread.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/123578614992

Seiko 7a38-6020 Olive Coated Chronograph Serviced With Fresh Battery in excellent working order. Its gaskets were replaced and the watch was dismantled and cleaned. Very few, if any of these time pieces are offered at auction having been serviced. The mineral crystal was not used in the service, as it was deemed by my jeweler unessessary at this stage as the current crystal is actually pretty good for its age.

A receipt for the service will be included with the watch and sent to the buyer.

The olive coating has some scuffing especially around the bezel and on the bracelet clasp.

Watch is from October 1984 and comes with a nineteen link bracelet.

It is being sold with a Seiko window case and a replacement mineral crystal.

Another well-worn brown coated 7A38-6020, with a stated chronograph reset fault (described in the item specifics) was listed at lunchtime today, by a German eBay seller, with a somewhat optimistic 'pie-in-the-sky' Buy-it-Now price of 399.95 Euros.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/223323430509

SEIKO 7A38-6020 Vintage Uhr Chrono Sports 100 Rarität.

The German eBay seller had re-listed his well-worn 7A38-6020 twice, most recently reducing his original 'pie-in-the-sky' Buy-it-Now price from 399.95 Euros to 298.95 Euros. It sold yesterday evening ....

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/223328691577

But as revealed by WatchCount.com's look-up tool, for a best offer of 200 Euros ....

.... almost half his original asking price. 

Evidently that sale must have fallen through, because the hapless German eBay seller re-listed it again yesterday evening. 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/223331978031

It appears to have sold again, a couple of days ago, after yet another re-listing, but not for the further slightly reduced Buy-it-Now price of 279.95 Euros.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/223337542851

WatchCount.com's Look-up tool reveals it sold for only 185 Euros this time around.

Seiko7A38 at January 4, 2019 at 11:11 AM

Another brown-coated 7A38-6020, in average worn condition, was listed this afternoon by an Australian eBay seller, with a 'pie-in-the-sky' Buy-it-Now price of $999.95 Au., or the option to make a more sensible much lower offer. It comes supplied with a spare NOS Seiko p/n 310W68GN00 crystal. 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/123578614992

Much as I enjoy the odd bit of sarcasm, I am getting tired of commenting adversely on the dubious activities of some eBay sellers and the antics they get up to - especially those who ask bloody silly prices for their watches. The Australian eBay seller of the above brown coated 7A38-6020 ended his listing on 20th January as allegedly 'item no longer available'. Having seen this happening so much lately, I simply couldn't be arsed to mention it.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm//123578614992

He re-listed it on Monday of this week. I didn't take a screen print of the listing. Two things had changed: He'd added this slightly out of focus wrist shot and made it the primary image. He'd also increased his already ludicrous 'pie-in-the-sky' Buy-it-Now price from the previous $999.95 Au to $1299.95 Au !! 

He ended that re-listing yesterday morning - once again as allegedly 'item no longer available'. 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/123628299559

Additionally if you review the original listing for the above posted item you will see the seller throws some serious shade towards this site in particular.  I at least got a chuckle out of it.  I have dropped the comment below, it is a bit salty.

Post content edited by Admin. 

Glad you found it amusing, Matthew. I thought it rather pathetic, personally. 

The Aussie seller obviously didn't appreciate my little discourse. 

Aw Diddums. That's what you get for trying to come the raw prawn. 

Looks like the Aussie eBay seller is losing it - big time. He re-listed his already laughably over-priced brown-coated 7A38-6020 again TWICE this morning, with the Buy-it-Now prices further increased to $1999.95 Au. and $2999.95 Au. (for the same only average worn condition watch). By asking these stupid prices, which nobody in their right mind would contemplate, he's clearly not interested in selling it - just using eBay to continue his personal hate campaign against me. Water off a duck's back, Mate.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/123648744140

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/123648719106

FWIW, the second listing includes 4 more new photos. That last softly focussed (completely out of focus) wrist shot is an absolute classic ! He must have been blinded by rage when he took it. 

Incidentally, I have already reported both his listings to eBay (under the Listing Practices category). Firstly under: Inappropriate item description / Profanity, obscenity, and vulgar language (This includes the use of language that is racist, hateful, sexual, or obscene. Secondly as Duplicate listings / Fixed price listing (This listing is a duplicate of another fixed price (or Buy It Now) listing from the same seller.)

If there are still any loyal members left on the forum who don't hate my guts, perhaps you could do likewise. Thanks Guys. 

The deranged Australian eBay seller aussiewatches continues to regurgitate his vitriolic tirades. Last night he listed the same average worn condition brown-coated 7A38-6020 a 3rd time, with a Buy-it-Now price increase to $3999.95 Au. That's probably about 10 TIMES what this watch is worth in real world terms - even on a good day. He's only uploaded one photo to this listing - another different wrist shot. I haven't bothered reading it, but the bold red text (which has taken priority over the actual watch's description) appears to be the same as the other two.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/123650007940

By the time I'd written the above post, he'd already ended the $2999.95 Au. listing.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/123648719106

Yet perversely, the one with the lower $1999.95 Au. Buy-it-Now price remains.

True to form, earlier this week, the abusive Australian eBay seller aussiewatches ended his two remaining laughably over-priced re-listings for his only average condition brown-coated 7A38-6020 as item allegedly no longer available. 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/123648744140

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/123650007940

I'd like to think that's the last we've seen of it, but somehow I suspect he's just got tired of playing that particular silly little game. To compensate - and presumably to elicit some sort of reaction from myself, in the early hours of this morning, he listed two rather more desirable 7A38's (and a 7A28, fitted with a non-original bracelet), all priced not to sell @ $3995 Au. The single photos he's currently uploaded to each of these new listings are of watches belonging to other collectors, that he's evidently 'borrowed' off the 'Net.

At the risk of incurring the wrath of the clearly deranged and embittered Australian eBay seller aussiewatches (not that I care one jot), I'm going to add a couple of quick footnotes to this unfinished saga.

If you click on the link I embedded in my previous post, you'll find nothing now. He ended those 3 BOGUS (and potentially fraudulent) eBay listings after a couple of days, in his typical manner - as item no longer available. Not that they ever were. He created another 3 BOGUS listings last week, all of which had his vitriolic tirade against myself in bold red text as a 'description'. Again they're also now 'no longer available'. FWIW, I've documented a couple of them in the 7A38 'Vulcan' thread.

He hasn't made any further attempt to sell his brown coated 7A38-6020 since and looking at his recently modified eBay profile, he may have decided to keep it.

You can actually right click and save the banner image:

Doesn't look quite so attractive there, as some of his other photos, does it ?

This Australian eBay seller may have been an eBay member since March 2012 and racked up a feedback rating of 452, but as the eBay ID history reveals, he's only been trading as aussiewatches since January 2018.

In fact, if you take 10 minutes to scroll through his feedback, very few of them were for transactions selling watches. In the last 6 months, the majority of his feedback received was for selling Minichamps 1:43 model racing cars. Prior to that, he was selling Cod Liver Oil capsules as sunshinesupplements and herbal shampoo and fake baldness remedies as time4hair. Talk about snake oil salesman !  He even managed to pick up a few negative feedbacks earlier in his selling career. These include: 'Disgusting communication after very small issue with item'. My favourite was the one at the bottom of page 11 that says simply 'dumb idiot'.

Moving on ....

This well-worn brown-coated 7A38-6020, fitted with an unidentified non-original replacement Seiko bracelet was listed in the early hours of this morning by Filipino eBay seller time_wise, with a laughable 'pie-in-the-sky' Buy-it-Now price of $450. 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/352608881318

SEIKO CHRONOGRAPH SPORTS 100 DAY/DATE 7A38-6020

A MUST HAVE COLLECTION

BEAUTIFUL RARE SEIKO WRISTWATCH IN GOOD CONDITION

Gender: Men's

Movement: Original Japan Chronograph Quartz. Properly function.

Date: Properly Function.

Dial: Original Seiko Black Dial. Still in good condition.

Hands: Original.

Case: Stainless Steel PVD Coated. Show thin hairline scratches and faded of PVD due to normal use but still in good condition.

Bezel: Properly Function. Bidirectional. Baked Lite Insert with cracks but still in decent condition.

Crown: Original.

Push Buttons: Properly Function.

Crystal: Original Seiko Dome Crystal. Still in good condition.

Dimension: Width: 42.5mm excluding crown Length: 43mm from Lugs to Lugs.

Bracelet: Original Seiko Stainless PVD Coated Faded Bracelet. Will fit 6 1/2 inches wrist size.

General Condition: Good working condition. Ready to wear. Keeps on time. New battery fitted.

SEE PHOTOS FOR DETAILS

SHIPPING and PAYMENT

Standard Shipping Cost via EMS or DHL Express:

China - $25.00

Thailand - $25.00

Hong Kong - $30.00

Malaysia - $35.00

Australia - $35.00

USA - $35.00

UK - $35.00

Canada -$35.00

France -$45.00

Spain - $45.00

Sweden -$45.00

FedEx - $60.00

DHL - $45.00

Shipping via DHL EXPRESS with Tracking Number.

The item will be shipped 2 days after the payment is confirmed.

Transit time varies depending on the destination. Usually 10-21 days.

WE ONLY ACCEPT PAYPAL PAYMENTS.

For Local Buyers we also accept bank deposit. Shipping via LBC. (Php 200.00)

BUYER IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE COUNTRY'S CUSTOM DUTIES and TAX if any.

ALL QUESTIONS AND INQUIRIES WILL BE ENTERTAINED HERE ON EBAY.

In the words of The Bard: