Seiko 7A38 - by the numbers

Following on from his recent ZEON 7Axx clone eBay purchase, forum member alan776600 seems to have caught the clone a virus. Earlier this evening, via Instagram, he PM'd me this small photo of an attractive looking panda dialed chronograph that he'd found on eBay.

To my amusement, he'd misread the dial logo as hp (not difficult given the original photos). I told him that it was actually the french Lip brand logo (of the Mach 2000's designer Roger Tallon fame). Naturally, I asked Alan for a link to the eBay auction, which he kindly provided. It's included in a large job lot of mostly non-working quartz watches, for spares or repair, listed by a French eBay seller, which is currently about halfway through its 3-day duration. 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/114345944089

Lot Montres Pour Pieces Lip Seiko casio et autres, 

A tester certaines fonctionnent, Quartz , auto , Manuel. 

Bien regarder avant d enchérir merci.

As soon as I saw the case design, with its external Tachymeter bezel, dome headed pushers, long slender straight lugs, with screw bar fixings, I instantly knew I'd seen something very similar once before - quite a long time ago. In sharing this with me, Alan has unwittingly helped shed some light on, if not solve, a 10-year old mystery. Remember this post of mine, from the first page ?

Seiko7A38 at March 14, 2012 at 9:57 PM

The next one frustrated the hell out of me, because I thought I might possibly have been on the trail of another Yema N7 or N8.

It's pretty hard to make out exactly what it was, and whether it even has a Day / Date, in these photos, even now, with hindsight.

It came up in a job lot of 'spares or repairs' junk watches on eBay in Spain in December 2010:

The watch I was interested in was the three sub-dial chrono' with only half a leather strap, and the familiar 7Axx pusher / crown layout -

the one with the dark-coloured dial and gold sub-dials. The listing title included the word Yema, and the buckle on the half of the strap (which you can see in the upper photo), looked to me like a Yema buckle (as used on the Spationaute III and a few other models). I did send the eBay seller a message (my Spanish isn't very good), asking if he could email me a better photo of (just) that watch. He never replied, and less than a day later, the auction ended early, so I presume someone must have made him an offer outside eBay. 

Now I've seen the Pryngeps 7A28-lookalike, I'm more inclined to think it might have been one of those rather than a(ny) Yema.

Disregarding that one had a badly tarnished gold plated bezel, I'm certain it's the same watch case. However I don't think that one was a Lip. Zooming in once again on the small (500x375) eBay images, there are at least three rows of text on the dial, whereas the Lip version has just two: the stylized lip logo and CHRONOGRAPH. However, it wouldn't surprise if more than one brand had used the same design watch case and dial. There are precedents documented on earlier pages of this thread, such as the ZentRa and VISA.

Armed with the knowledge that a Lip panda dialed version of this particular 7Axx clone existed, I went looking for another. It took just a matter of minutes to find one. This example, which appears to be fitted with an original Lip branded blue shark strap was listed in the last week of June by French eBay seller, with a Buy-it-Now price of 80 Euros or the option to make an offer. Hmm. Tempting.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254624859761

Lip Chronograph Panda Dial. État: Occasion Service de livraison: Lettre Suivie

A somewhat belated postscript to that attractive little Lip Panda 7Axx clone. I'd added it to my eBay watch list and looked at it whistfully a few times, when it came back round to the first page every 30 days. I noticed at one point the listing had over a dozen watchers besides myself, but remained sat on my hands. Last month the French eBay seller ended the listing as item allegedly lost or broken. Presumably someone else made them an offer and it was sold off eBay.  

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254624859761

Speaking of 7Axx clones with Panda dials, yesterday evening an Italian eBay seller listed another of those Kamatz variants, with a risible 'pie-in-the-sky' Buy-it-Now price of 289 Euros (with the option to make a much lower, more realistic offer).

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/303773355092

Cronografo Kamatz Paris FUNZIONANTE. La condizione "Usato". Spedito con Pacco ordinario standard.

I added that to my eBay watching page (purely out of curiosity), but when I clicked on the link again this morning, was surprised to find that I'd already received an unsolicited offer of 230 Euros from the seller. I think I'll pass. I've already got too many of the 'real deal' Shimauchi V906 (7A38) powered versions. 

Before wrapping up, I thought I'd add a couple of quick footnotes to this thread. The above Kamatz '7A28 clone' Panda listed by the Italian eBay seller last November still currently remains unsold - despite his having reduced the Buy-it-Now price three times, now down to 'only' 149 Euros.

Yesterday, another similar Kamatz 'Panda', with the more attractive 'Oscar Bravo' rotary slide rule bezel was listed by a Zero-feedback US eBay seller, with a risible 'pie-in-the-sky' Buy-it-Now price of $400.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/333869216830

Rare MEN'S VINTAGE KAMATZ. Condition is "Pre-owned". Beautiful face white and blue. Glass is good, Bezel has some wear. Leather bands has some wear. Needs battery. Sold as is. Pictures are of actual watch.

Interestingly, if you zoom in on the seller's primarly image, although he's listed it as a 'Kamatz', the dial carries the alternative KAMAZZO branding, which I've seen in some old adverts, such as this: