Seiko 7A38 - by the numbers

This horrible example of the watch-botcher's art (of the worst kind that usually emanates from the Philippines) was listed in the early hours of this morning by a Columbian eBay seller, with a fanciful opening bid price of $200.

The seller describes it as 'Stainless Steel'. Well I guess it is underneath.  But originally (not just the head of) this 7A38-7080 would have been black chrome plated all over. It's been stripped of most of its original worn coating, but plenty of evidence remains in the bezel knurling. The corners and sides of the watch case have lost some of their definition during the enthusiastic polishing that it's been subjected to.  The stainless bracelet fitted isn't original to this watch, either.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/113558416155

Vintage Seiko Quartz Sport 100

Stainless Steel REF. 7A38 7080

The watch is in excellent conditions looks greats ,

works runs and keep time however time accuracy is not guaranteein all our vintage watches

any question we are glad to answer you as soon as possible,

all pictures are for the actual watch on auction use it as a reference of the description.

Incidentally, if you need any more persuasion to avoid this watch-botcher like the plague - just take a good look at the photos of the 7A38-702H he's also listed !!

They may not have featured in this particular thread before, but I've previously slated the watch-botching activities of Brazilian eBay seller watches.br in this forum section and probably elsewhere. In the last year or so, they changed their eBay ID to denguinho, but from the style of their photos and multi-coloured descriptions, which always, without fail, include the word 'impeccable', it's clearly the same outfit, masquerading under a new identity.

Apart from creating Frankens, one of their other favourite tricks is fitting non-original bracelets, that they don't always declare as being such. Which is a shame, because they're really the only eBay seller who lists the ZFM variants (otherwise rarely seen outside Brazil). So what happens when they decide, for want of anything better, to fit a silver coloured bracelet to a black-chrome coated ZFM 7A38-7085 ?

This hideous abberation came up in my saved searches earlier today:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/183632116868

As you can see, from studying the photos, they've crudely scraped and sanded most of the black chrome coating off the watch case, but leaving the sides black, so it better matches their chosen ill-matched incorrect replacement bracelet. Going by the lack of wear to the bezel and case-back, this was probably a decent example of a ZFM 7A38-7085, before these butchers got their hands on it ! 

I wasn't sure where to add this at first, here, or another aptly named topic in this forum section: The 'Smoke and Mirrors' 7Axx eBay auction listing thread because this verbose Serbian eBay seller certainly puts up one helluva red-tinted smokescreen ! Yes, it's another black chrome coated 7A38-7080, but with a slight difference. It was listed late last night, as a 7-day auction with an opening bid price of $265. Nothing wrong with that you might think - apart from the Tachymeter ring being upside down  ....

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/223535622821

If you can be bothered to read through the bold red text part of the description, which gives a potted history of Seiko, you'll eventually come to this sentence:

please take this description into account when you buying this watch).... watch is not new, it is old specimen of watch, and have normal trace of use (I don't know if this is seen on the photo because it is hard for photographed-many shadow and shine reflection)…

Now look at the seller's photos. The first three show typical coating wear to the watch head: corners of the case and bezel rim. Compare those with the next group of three, which show the bracelet with zero wear and and unusually matt (and rather heavily applied) paint finish. I reckon someone has been wielding a spray can. 

After umpteen re-listings, across multiple eBay domains (of more anon), devious watch-botching Brazilian eBay seller denguinho (previously a.k.a. watches.br) ended their latest re-listing for that partially stripped ZFM 7A38-7085 a couple of days ago, as allegedly being no longer available.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/183857944648

If only that were true. 

It's back again, re-listed in the early hours of this morning, now fitted with a different 'two-tone' stainless / black non-original generic replacement bracelet. This time, in a rare concession to honesty, their listing includes the word 'CUSTOMIZED'.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/183866637327

Just in case you might miss seeing their handiwork half-arsed butchery, they've also listed it, in parallel, across 5 other eBay domains (besides the eBay.com listing):

http://www.ebay.it/itm/183866776724

http://www.ebay.fr/itm/183866776701

http://www.ebay.es/itm/183866776716

http://www.ebay.de/itm/183866776726

http://www.ebay.com/itm/183866637327

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/183866776722

Seiko7A38 at October 29, 2018 at 12:33 PM

This allegedly 'very rare' gold-tone 7A38-7190, which has almost been completely stripped of all its gold plating and over-polished, in the best Filipino watch-botcher tradition, was listed earlier this afternoon by Italian eBay seller checkpointflorence, with an absolutely ludicrous Buy-it-Now price of 950 Euros.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/264012851306

Hard to believe, even after all this time (note the date of my original quoted post) ....

But yesterday evening, someone appears to have hit the Buy-it-Now button on the latest re-listing for that over-polished turd of what once was a gold-tone 7A38-7190.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/264290110828

One can only assume that they acted under the influence of too much holiday spirit (or more likely were completely stoned out of their tiny minds).

Hopefully they sobered up before they actually paid 950 Euros for it !