Seiko 7A38 - by the numbers

You've probably noticed, particularly in the 'eBay' section that I'm frequently doling out advice about the perils of buying used 7A38's.

Frankens, botched or misrepresented watches, buying from disreputable or dodgy sellers, over-pricing and profiteering resellers, etc.

Truth is though, despite all that, bearing in mind the purchase experience I've gained over the last 4 years, much as I hate to admit it,

I'm not very good at setting an example. Sometimes, even today, I will throw caution to the wind - and break my own set of rules. 

I will qualify that by saying that it's usually in pursuit of the 'unobtainable' - something rare or desirable (in my eyes) that I want badly

or 'NOS' (New Old Stock) - a descriptor that is frequently abused and mis-used by many eBay sellers as a magnet to attract buyers.

Some of the Orient J39's which I've added to my collection over the last couple of years could be best described as 'cheap beaters'. 

They've not necessarily been in the condition I would have liked - sometimes far from it. I've simply bought an example of most of the different (sub) variations I've come across on eBay - often as not, the first one I've seen, too. Compared to Seiko 7A38's, they appear to be far less common, though like their better known Japanese siblings, it's likely they were probably also made in tens of thousands.

I excuse myself for buying such cheap beaters (sometimes even what I'd class as 'junkers') in the name or anorak-level reseach

- as a means of expanding my own personal 'knowledge database' of the Orient J39 product range. There isn't a great deal to go on.

Back in February 2010, soon after I'd bought my first Orient '7A38' from Kurt, a German collector, I wrote to the Orient Watch Co. Ltd.

This is a copy and paste of their typically polite, but not particularly helpful reply:

Dear Sir, 

We received your e-mail dated 15th Feb., 2010, thank you very much.

With reference to the model J39601, please find following.

This model J39601 seems to be produced on around 1987-1988, at our Hino factory, Japan.

Its movement is J3920, please find attached PDF.

Case & bracelet material : Stainless Steel

Glass: crystal

Water resistant to 100m

We had several type of J39 chronograph models until 1990 year, but it is regret to say that we do not have such records in hand now.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any other questions.

Thanks and best regards.

Orient Watch Co., Ltd.

Although these watches were obviously manufactured in conjuction with (if not actually by) Seiko Corporation, there's sadly no public look-up database available, as we're so fortunate to have for Seiko 7A's - other than this incomplete table I found on Boley's website:

http://www.boley.de/en/case-parts/orient?x=9&y=9&search=J39

To that short list I can add models J39725-70 and J39909-80 and I suspect from their numbering sequence that other 'gaps' exist. 

I haven't written much about Orient J39's on our forum, to date, for a very simple reason - this year has been particularly quiet for me.

It wasn't until late November when, with help from forum member Andre I bagged my first of 2012 - another J39001-70 'cheap beater'.

I've written about that J39 in the 'Some wry observations on Orient J39 pricing' thread, because it seemed partly relevant to that topic.

However, going back a couple of years, to the days when my 7A38 outpourings almost monopolized the Japanese section of RLT ....

I did manage to compile an 8-page 'epic tome' of a thread about the Orient J39, documenting my various discoveries and purchases:

http://www.thewatchforum.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=52124

That thread has incredibly received nearly 15,000 views, even though all the photos which were embedded in it are long since gone.

Reason I mentioned the RLT thread is one of my Orient J39's - probably the worst 'basket case' of them all is documented on page 7.

As background relevant to this new thread, I trust readers will allow me the indulgence of recounting that sorry tale one more time.

I didn't know which particular Orient J39 model it was at the time, but it cropped up on eBay in Australia of all places, in August 2011.

The item # has long since dropped off eBay history, but the listing looked something like this:

ORIENT QUARTZ CHRONOGRAPH

It was listed and described simply as: 'ORIENT QUARTZ CHRONOGRAPH' and 'White Face; Gold; Tan Adjustable Band'.

(with the usual secondhand quartz watch rider) 'require batteries', which in this case, as it turned out should have rung alarm bells.

I can't remember exactly why now: either the seller wasn't accepting bids from abroad, or wouldn't ship outside Australia, but to win it, I enlisted the help of ozzie watch collector Phil Newton ('Phillionaire' on RLT). We won it for only $33Au, which seemed like a bargain.

In fact, as has been the case with a few other Orient J39 'cheap beaters', the postage actually cost more than the winning bid price. 

Before he packaged it, Phil emailed me the case-back number J39908-70 and took the iPhone pic below, which looked encouraging.

However, when it arrived, all the way from the Land of Oz, in early September 2011, it didn't look quite so encouraging any more. 

Here are the first couple of photos I took, as received - warts 'n all. To save time, I'll copy and paste my text from the RLT thread.

Doesn't actually look too bad, does it ? 

The leather strap fitted appears to be the original Orient item.

Interestingly it's a 20mm strap cut down to fit the watch's 19mm lug width fitting.

Notice also the crystal is glued in - there's no nylon gasket visible in that photo.

Bit of an odd size too - approximately 31.5mm Ø x 1.27mm thick, with a polished bevel edge.

As you can possibly see from that photo, the crystal has started to shatter around '250' on the Tachy scale.

Sourcing a suitable replacement crystal was just one of the set-backs I encountered which delayed the rebuild.

I pressed out the original crystal, which didn't come out particularly cleanly, leaving glass fragments to clean up.

My first thought was to order a Cousins' 'cheapie' replacement crystal - 31.5mm Ø x 1.30mm thick.

That didn't want to fit, let alone be glued in, so then I ordered another - 31.4mm Ø - which was a bit loose. 

The watch case has suffered some strange sweat-induced   corrosion - nothing quite like I've ever encountered before.

Although the case-back is stamped 'GP' - implying gold plated, I'm not convinced that whatever lies underneath is 'metal'.

Once the worst of the verdigris was cleaned off, under close magnification, it looked more like injection-moulded resin. 

But worse was to come, when I unscrewed the case-back:

This is probably the worst example of battery acid damage to a 7Axx movement that I've ever personally encountered ....

Doesn't look any better in a bright light:

As you can see, the acid gunge had run right around the movement, virtually destroying everything in it's path. 

Not only that, but the battery has welded itself to the back-plate, which will make that very difficult to rescue.

Before I popped the movement out, I'd already tried very tentatively turning the main hands using the crown.

The sweep second hand moved around with the minute hand, instead of staying static, as you'd expect.

The date would click over manually, but the day wheel stayed resolutely stuck on DOM. 

The simple reason for the former was that the acid damage / rust had permeated right up through the central hand stack:

As you can see from the second photo in the previous post (now the third photo in this post) ....

From the sheer amount of rust and gunge which also pooled in the inside of the case-back,

it would appear that the watch was left for years in a drawer with an old battery, luckily face up.

I suspect that the leaking acid running up through the central hand stack was by capilliary action.

So, other than some oxidization to the batons and hands, the dial itself survived reasonably well undamaged.

There is also a very small localized amount of paint micro-blistering - but it's almost invisible to the naked eye. 

I've put the original Orient movement to one side, for the time being, and will see what I can rescue from it at a later date.

In the meantime, I fitted the dial and hands to a spare rebuilt Seiko 7A38 movement (one with a Spanish DOM day wheel):

I carefully polished up the hour and minute hands, using a small piece cut from a sheet of printer paper.

The pin on the underside of the original Orient sweep second hand was too badly rusted to consider re-using,

so I've fitted a similar-looking Seiko sweep second hand, which is used on quite a few of the dressy 7A38's.

For the time being, until I'm feeling braver, the gold plated batons have been left as found - with odd flecks of tarnish.

The main purpose of that particular shot was to show the Orient (by Seiko ?) dial part number printing:

SI - 034 visible near the 5 o'clock baton, and J392 9087 (usually) hidden under the Tachy dial ring spacer.

If nothing else, from this post, try to remember how the J39908-70's dial looks and its various part numbers - you'll see why later. 

The last line of my post in that particular section of the RLT thread went as follows:

I'll take some photos of the rebuilt watch at some point, but it's never going to look much better than my photo in post ....

Thing is, I never did get around to sharing them on RLT. So to make amends, albeit somewhat belatedly, here's a couple of them:

No, your eyes aren't deceiving you - the Tachymeter scale lettering is printed in dark green, not black.

In fact, I may have posted the photo below in one of their later 'Sunday Morning Beater' WRUW threads.

Truth is, although it might now be working, this watch was still very rough indeed, and one needs to take photos from flattering angles.

You may possibly be wondering what became of the original battery acid-riddled Orient J3920 movement. Well, more than a year later, it's still soaking in a shallow pool of WD40 in a small metal tin. Realistically, all I ever expected (or hoped) to save from it was the Orient J3920 stamped backplate. So far, I've actually managed to get 4 of the 7 screws undone - without having to resort to drilling them out !

Before I sign off for tonight, one last quote from page 7 of the RLT Orient J39 thread, that I made on November 18th, 2011:

So after my less-than-satisfactory experience with buying that J39908-70, based on an eBay seller's 'fuzzy photos',

You'd think I'd have learned my lesson, about buying cheap 'junker' Orient J39's - just to further my research. Right ? 

Wrong ! 

Just to show that nothing changes - and another 12 months on, I'm still making the same kind of 'newbie' mistakes ....

including breaking almost all of my own 'common sense' rules I listed at the beginning of my first post in this thread ....

Tomorrow, time permitting, I'll bring this thread up to date.

Orient J39's don't crop up on eBay very often, let alone in 'New Old Stock' condition, so you can imagine my muffled whoops of delight, when what at first appeared to be a genuine NOS J39908-70 appeared on eBay in Italy in mid November:

http://www.ebay.it/itm/221154326326

Bellissimo orologio ORIENT CHRONOGRAPH

Bellissimo orologio ORIENT chronograph 

Elegantissimo, splendido design... 

Quadrante: a tre sfere le ore a cavaglieri a ore 12

Cassa:acciaio colore oro 

Vetro: antiriflesso minerale 

Diametro: solo vetro:3,2cm. 

Water resistant

Orologio mai indossato,è nuovo, dotato di cinturino in pelle originale ORIENT 

Un orologio ideale per fare o farsi uno splendido regalo!! 

Spedizione: plico assicurato poste italiane 

Pagamenti: vaglia postale o altro bonifico bancario. 

BUONA ASTA !!!!!

The seller's photos were a bit fuzzy (and oddly .bmp files rather than jpegs), but one could easily imagine that it was virtually new.

Note the original Orient embossed leather strap, the JWC inspection sticker and the Orient logo hologram sticker overlaying that.

However something didn't look quite right about the dial. Note the odd combination of lumed hour markers and plain gold hands.

Also the ORIENT CHRONOGRAPH QUARTZ printing on the dial was in different order to my previous and lower down. Hmm. 

Naturally, straight away, I inverted and zoomed in on the seller's photo of the case-back and read the model number J39908-70, which confirmed what I'd already identified it as, from the case style - and then proceeded to completely ignore the discrepancies in the dial.

It was going to be mine ! 

Or at least I thought it was, at the time. 

Bidding started at 9.99 Euros, and there were a couple of other bidders besides myself. It was a 5 day listing and bidding had reached around 25 Euros. I had auctionsniper set, ready to blitz anybody else who might have been going for it in the final seconds. 

However, if you click on the eBay listing link in my post above, all you'll get now is this:

Much to my anger and dismay, the seller deleted the listing just over 24 hours before it was scheduled to end. 

The Italian eBay bid cancellation notification wafted into my email inbox a little while later. 

That was on the 20th November. Now if I’d had any sense, I would have heeded the warnings in the eBay message and just let it go. 

But No, not me.  I messaged the eBay seller and asked what had happened to the watch. She said it had been withdrawn due to circumstances beyond her control; Yeh right  and it would be re-listed in 3 days time – as a Buy-it-Now, if I was still interested.

We discussed a figure.

Then it went quiet for a week and more. I kept a watchful eye on the seller to see if she re-listed it. Nothing, but In the meantime I'd noticed they had picked up a strongly worded negative feedback on 27th November – on a watch. Alarm bells began to ring.

Remember, one of the most frequently chanted mantras is ‘Buy the Seller’ (not just the goods they are peddling). This was an Italian eBay seller, which as trading nation doesn't have the best of reputations, dealing in jewellery and watches who, on the face of it, had only managed to rack up a feedback of 30 in 6 years of selling on eBay (this ID was first created in 2006). But that isn’t their full story.

Bearing in mind the seller's first name is Alina, the earliest feedback left for alinkagioie shows evidence of another previous identity:

On 3rd December, the seller sent me another message saying that she would re-instate the listing as a Buy-it-Now immediately, if I could pay by bank transfer. I declined. They replied saying that they had a temporary problem with PayPal, which I read between the lines that the seller’s PayPal account had been frozen, pending a dispute. My response was polite, but firm – Sorry, but I needed the protection that paying by Paypal affords a buyer. It all went quiet again.

Late in the evening of Friday 7th December, around 9:30pm, I received another message saying that the watch was now listed as a Buy-it-Now. It certainly was, but at a rather higher figure than we had previously discussed – 160 Euros.  I agonised for a couple of minutes, but instead of asking the seller to reduce it, swallowed hard; clicked the Buy-it-Now button and paid by Paypal. Of course, we were now up against the pre-Christmas log jam and the Italian postal system. I was wondering if it would even arrive before Christmas.

The seller emailed me a tracking number, which for the entire remainder of the following week was not recognised by Poste Italiane.

I was beginning to get concerned. Saturday 15th I’d been out all day; came home about 6:30pm, ready to go out again soon after and found a jiffy bag – a package from Italy on the doormat. It had arrived !!  The tracking number label was the same she'd given, but it had been pushed through my letterbox without a signature. Later I checked and it still wasn’t recognised on Poste Italiane’s system. 

The watch was packaged well enough, but my initial impressions were that it didn’t look quite as NOS as I’d hoped.  The gold plating had quite a lot of light scuffing and a couple of tiny dings – as if it had been handled a lot, carelessly, if not actually worn. Much to my surprise it was actually running, and the time was almost right – about 6:30. Although the date was showing 16 and the day was stuck halfway between SAM and SAT. The chronograph hands were all over the place; I soon reset those, and gave it a couple of test runs. The sweep second hand was sometimes reluctant to reset to zero. When I reset the day / date using the quickchange, it didn’t feel right at all, with a nasty grating feeling when advancing the day. I set the watch all correct, got changed and went out for the evening.

By Sunday morning, the date had changed over properly, but not the day - stuck halfway. I reset it; same thing again Monday morning.

I emailed the seller, describing the faults and let her know, in no uncertain terms, that I was not happy with the received condition. 

She replied, saying that there couldn't be anything wrong with the day / date mechanism, because the watch had been 'overhauled' (meaning probably that it had a new battery fitted) and that she personally had set the day / date and time correct before packaging it on that Friday. But hang on a minute. I didn't receive her eBay message till gone 9:30pm on Friday 7th. By the time I'd processed the PayPal transaction, it was probably closer to 10:00pm, which would have been 11:00 CET. Rule #1 when setting 7A38's - NEVER mess with the day / date quickchange between 11:00pm and 3:00am. So it was likely she who broke the day / date changeover wheel. 

I'd paid with PayPal, so I had buyer protection / option to return the watch for a full refund. Had common sense prevailed, I probably should have. But then again, although far from perfect, it was much better than the one I already had. Plus there would be even more grief returning it to the seller and trying to get confirmed proof of delivery from the Italian postal system. I decided to negotiate a partial refund based on 'a projected repair cost' (by Seiko UK - their minimum charge being £85). Impasse; the seller went quiet on me again.

So I opened a case in the eBay / PayPal Resolution Centre - and got an immediate 50% refund !! 

So now I've got an almost NOS J39908-70 with a buggered day / date changeover wheel for a more reasonable price - 80 Euros. 

Result ? I'm not so sure.  There's still the issue of the potentially 'wrong' dial fitted. The visible dial part number is SI - 007.

Here's another slightly better photo of the watch (with the day clicked over / aligned manually) that I took the following day:

Much as I'd been tempted, because I had a dispute in progress with the eBay seller, I couldn't open up the watch to have a look inside before this weekend, when once again - par for the time of year, the weather is crap and there's absolutely no natural light available.

So please excuse the quality of the following images, taken by desk lighting and / or flash. 

At least this J39908-70 looks a lot better from underneath than my previous sweat corroded example. But then as 'NOS' it should do:

She replied, saying that .... the watch had been 'overhauled' (meaning probably that it had a new battery fitted) ....

Indeed it had - an incorrect under-sized Maxell SR920W (# 370) as opposed to the correct SR936SW (# 394):

The sweep second hand was sometimes reluctant to reset to zero.

The reason for that was immediately obvious  - the customary displaced centre seconds finger tension spring. Bloody amateurs ! 

Both very quickly sorted, needless to say:

There's still the issue of the potentially 'wrong' dial fitted. The visible dial part number is SI - 007.

It was with some trepidation, that I popped the movement out - not quite sure what dial part numbers to expect to find underneath:

(Once again the day has been clicked over manually to align with the window, purely for photographic purposes - it still needs fixing.)

The main purpose of that particular shot was to show the Orient (by Seiko ?) dial part number printing:

SI - 034 visible near the 5 o'clock baton, and J392 9087 (usually) hidden under the Tachy dial ring spacer.

So it would appear from the identical hidden numbering that this is also a correct alternative dial fitment for the Orient J39908-70. 

In case you're wondering (or care) why I'm so certain that both these different dial versions are good for the Orient J39908-70 ....

There is a rationale. Note in my previous post where I've highlighted the dial number as also being part of the case-back number.

Unlike Seiko 7A38's, where the (partial) dial part number may sometimes be a couple of digits different to the pertinent case-back model number, the numbering system used on Orient J39's (and the related Puma Y19's) seem to have a much closer logical and direct numeric relationship, where the dial part number is nearly always a partial of the case-back number in which that dial is used.

Needless to say, since I started investigating these watches 2½ years ago, in true anorak form, I've been documenting my findings. 

Had the dial number hidden underneath the Tachymeter ring been anything other than 9087 - and I did genuinely suspect this NOS J39908-70 I'd bought was a 'wrong 'un', right up until the moment I dropped the movement out; from any other number that may have been printed there, in theory, I should have been able to work out which hitherto unknown 'missing' J39 variant it had come from. 

If this NOS J39908-70 had turned out to be a 'wrong un', I probably wouldn't have had any qualms about combining its far better watch case and original Orient lizard grain strap with the more attractive-looking dial from my rough J39908-70, to make one 'decent' watch. 

We all know just how quick and easy an operation it is to swap dial / movement modules about between 7A38's. J39's are no different.

After all, my 'freebee' ex Wimstore J3920 'Diver' documented in the other Orient thread, had turned out to be a franken combination:

the watch case from an all-stainless J39701-70, into which someone had fitted with the dial / movement from a two-tone J39001-70.

Until I'd verified these two J39908-70's shared a common dial part number, I was keeping an open mind - it was a distinct possibility.

So now I'm going to keep them both as they are - as two different, but 'correct' versions of the same watch. 

Here's a Q&D side-by-side shot of them I managed to take during a brief interlude of sunshine, earlier today.

I'm sure you'll all agree, the dial of my first one on the left looks 'right', whereas the NOS on the right looks slightly incongruous. 

It's not just the odd-looking lumed batons, the misuscule, almost illegible minute numbers, poor positioning of ORIENT CHRONOGRAPH and grey (rather than black) printing; even the sub-dials' gold rims are less well proportioned. Everything about the design is 'wrong'.

As the NOS dial has a visible part number of SI - 007 and the other one is SI - 034, one can only assume it was a later re-design. 

Holy Belated Bump, Batman ! This post may go down in the annals of the forum as one of the most extreme instances of thread resurrection ever. There are a number of other existing topics in this forum section (and elsewhere) which cover the dressy Orient J39908-70. It certainly didn't warrant starting yet another thread.

In case you're wondering, I chose this one to tack onto, because it includes more background on the watch in question. To very quickly recap, I bought it off eBay in Australia, back in August 2011, for the princely sum of $33. (The postage actually cost more than the watch.) It turned out to have suffered a fairly disastrous battery leak - the worst I've ever personally encountered, my partial recovery from which is fully documented in this other thread in the Workshop section.

It was the very first example of a J39908-70 I'd ever seen and the first I bought. I've since acquired a fair number of them, both ORIENT and RACER branded versions, in both styles and various colours of dial. Most of the variants are documented in this J39908-70 dedicated thread and the Racer J39 'Spanish Inquisition' thread.

It may not be in ideal condition, but for perverse sentimental reasons, it still holds a special place in my collection. I honestly can't remember the last time I wore it. I posted this fairly flattering wrist shot of it in the WRUW thread back in August 2013.

That photograph hides a multitude of sins. Like a good number of the other dressy Orient J39 case designs, the J39908-70's case is metal-skinned resin construction. Over long periods of wear, they are prone to sweat induced corrosion - as indeed shown in one of my 'as received' photos (of the case-back), posted higher up the page. Here's a couple more that I took this morning, which show it rather clearer.

There have been a couple of 'duplicates' among the many J39908-70's I've bought since. On occasions I had thought about swapping this watch's dial and movement into one of them. It definitely needed something better. Back in May 2014, I bought an Orient J38 (7A48 equivalent) beater off eBay, which used the same watch case, with the deliberate intention of breaking it up for parts - to act as a donor. The Italian seller hadn't included any photos of the sides of the watch case. Evidently I should have asked for some.  It had suffered even worse corrosion on one side ! 

Six years and more passed by and still I hadn't done anything about fitting the dial / movement into a better watch case and had almost given up hope of ever finding another donor case. Then, middle of last month, this popped up on eBay Italy. 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/392978225408

cassa orient placcata oro orologio cronografo spare repair watch

It was obviously a bit grubby and the crystal had a couple of deep scratches, but the sides of the watch case were intact. So I really don't know why, instead of hitting the Buy-it-Now button as soon as I first saw it, I left it until the 30-day listing had almost expired, before doing so. Couldn't really go wrong at that price.  

The package arrived from Italy on Friday. Yesterday I stripped and carefully cleaned the watch case. I pressed out the original glued-in crystal, which came out relatively cleanly, but in two pieces. So now I need to find a replacement.

Looking at my previous photos, confirmed by what I found when I disassembled it, seems when I last re-built it, I'd fitted 3 NOS Seiko pushers. Presumably I did that because the gold plating had flaked off the original Orient pushers, which they're prone to. This time I used the Orient pushers from the donor J39908-70 watch case (they're the same length, but their buttons have slightly more bevelled tops). Before anybody else chimes in, I'll say it for you: only an anorak like myself would know the difference. By lunchtime today it was re-assembled, looking a little less worse for wear than before.

I've deliberately kept the original sub-dial hands, with their battery acid rusted centre bosses, as a reminder of the watch's received condition. As indeed, I re-fitted its original acid-stained case-back. Looking at the inside of the case-back from that donor case, it looks like that watch may well have succumbed to a similar fate.

I guess all it needs now is for me to take a new wrist shot ....