Seiko 7A38 - by the numbers

Readers may recall that I started off this thread, which has become something of a 'voyage of discovery', nearly 6½ years ago, by quoting an erstwhile forum member:

This latest quest started for me in the last week of July, prompted by a post made by Lawrence (forum member Konkordski) in the

Rare and unusual 7T32-xxxx variants spotted thread. There, he wote on 23rd July:

Considering how protective Seiko is of its movements (even rebranded 7T's) this one slipped through the net...

http://www.todocoleccion.net/reloj-racer-chronograph-caballero~x26942597

Racer seems to be part of Orient but can only find one other Seiko-esque chrono online (unknown movement) ....

Amusingly, some 6½ years later, that RACER TEAM COLLECTION branded 7T32, which we now know is actually a HFA000, is still unsold and being automatically re-listed ad nauseam on Todocoleccion.net. It came up as the first item at the top of a search result recently ! 

http://todocoleccion.net/reloj-racer-chronograph-caballero~x26942597

The fact that so much 'old crap' like this is constantly re-gurgitated ad nauseam, on Todocoleccion.net and particularly more so on Milanuncios.com, meaning that you have to plough through it all, to find anything newly listed, had probably lead to my becoming more lax about running regular searches on the free Spanish classified sites of late. 

It may be a boring ball ache of a job, but sometimes it does actually pay off. At the end of November, I ran one of my lately infrequent searches on Todocoleccion.net and found this auction listing for a dressy NOS RACER J39, with 4 days left to run:

https://www.todocoleccion.net/relojes-racer/reloj-pulsera-racer-pila-recien-puesta-pulsera-piel-negra-original-funcionando-s~x181552220

I instantly recognised the dial as being the RACER logo'd version of Mihai's Orient J39031-70, which is covered in this thread, along with my two gold-plated versions of Orient J39930-70, which obviously use the same watch case. Typically, this one has a slightly different case-back model number, being J39928-70.

Needless to say, I watched the auction listing like a hawk, half-expecting to be outbid in the final seconds, but luckily nobody bid against me and I won the auction for the opening bid price of only 45 Euros. The Spanish seller caused me some unnecessary consternation by giving me some duff shipping information, but it eventually did arrive safely. This less than ideal wrist shot, which I posted (rotated by 90°) in the WRUW thread last week is the only photo I've taken of it thus far.

When light conditions improve, I'll take a side-by-side comparison shot with my two Orient J39930-70's and post it in that other thread.

Speaking of bargain priced dressy RACER J39's ....

Not to be outdone, while I was still waiting for that J39928-70 to arrive, Romanian forum member gogusrl (Andrei - who still hasn't posted anything on the forum yet), emailed me a link to yet another variation on the same dressy J39 theme, that he'd found on another Spanish classifieds site: Wallapop.com - and bought for himself.

https://es.wallapop.com/item/reloj-racer-cronografo-383644126

As can be seen from the case-back stamping, it's a J39029-70 - another contrasting off-white dial colour variant (using the same gunmetal two-tone watch case and black Tachymeter ring) as my black Roman numeral dialed RACER J39029-70.

It's not really meant as an excuse, but one of the reasons I'd fallen months behind, with adding pertinent updates to this thread, is that I'd possibly misguidedly been adding them on to other semi-relevant threads in this forum section - like this one.

Originally posted by myself on August 16, 2019 at 12:46 PM:

Under other more fortunate circumstances, I might be adding this new post onto the Racer J39 'Spanish 7A38 Inquisition' thread. Probably more rightfully, it belongs in the Orient J39 variants (ones that got away) thread.  However, seeing as all the previous references I've made to this particular Orient / Racer J39 case model variant were in this thread, here is where I'm going to post it (for now). So there. 

Yesterday afternoon, out of the blue, Romanian forum member Gogusrl (real name Andrei) emailed me links to a couple of Racer J39's he'd spotted on OLX.ro. Both had only been listed a matter of hours earlier. I replied promptly, asking if he'd kindly purchase them on my behalf. Although there was no mention of a model number in the listing, one of them was obviously an original unmolested J39924-50 (which had formed the basis of that horrible 7A48 Franken, listed by the Spanish eBay seller in mid-February - see my posts higher up the page).

http://www.olx.ro/oferta/orient-racer-chronograph-IDcHJiP.html

Orient Racer chronograph

Bucharest, county Bucharest, Sector 5 Added by phone at 15:57, 15 August 2019, Ad number: 187738283

Ceas Orient Racer chronograph. Stare foarte bună. Vintage, anii 80. Funcțional.

The asking price was a reasonable 450 Romanian Lei, which I'd happily have paid. That's equivalent to approx 95 Euros - less than the Franken 7A48 sold for in  May. Unfortunately we were too late. It had already been sold. 

Anyway, closure of sorts. Turns out the J39924-50 looks much as I'd expected it to: same gold-plated resin watch case as the J39024-50, fitted with a gold plated bezel. I updated my Orient J39 'Knowledge Database' Excel spreadsheet accordingly.

The fact that I now knew what the RACER J39924-50 looked like (as opposed to that 7A48 Franken using the dial and case-back) didn't make me feel any better about having missed out on that example - particularly as it was on my birthday. 

I really didn't ever expect to find another one, but all the same, I set up a saved favourite eBay search on J39924-50, just in case one ever did turn up on there.

One did, rather sooner than I'd anticipated: a white dialed version, rather than black, which was listed by a Spanish eBay seller, last week, with a Buy-it-Now price of 199 Euros, or the option to make an offer. Note the erroneous '7T38 caliber' tacked onto the end of the title.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274102783844

Rare Racer Team Collection

Working conditions

Not genuine strap

Scratches are present on the cristal, case and back

Any doubts just ask before buying

Thank you.

I must admit that I hastily rushed in there and hit the Buy-it-Now button, rather than making an offer, waiting and risk losing it to another potential buyer. Oddly, later on, when I checked WatchCount.com, it showed that it had theoretically been listed since 18th November. I couldn't believe that I'd missed spotting it before (or my saved search had failed to find it) for nearly 3 weeks.

Checking the item revision summary, I suspect this listing was either a pre-existing saved draft, or an earlier listing for something else, which the seller edited in its entirety (see below) to create the 'new' listing.

If the latter is the case, it would mean the 'new' listing was actually live for less than 15 minutes, after he'd finished editing, before my saved search found it. 

Better late than never, here's a side-by-side comparison shot of the all-over gold plated RACER J39924-50 next to my NOS white dialed J39024-50. They use the same case (obviously with different bezel coatings) and the same leather strap.

Here are a couple of wrist shots I'd posted earlier in the WRUW thread:

Note the very slight differences in their dial designs viz. batons and printing layout. It makes you wonder why Orient Watch Co. went to the trouble of producing a second (and less attractive) dial variant. 

When I started collecting the RACER branded Orient J39's, some 6½ years ago - back in August 2013, I had no idea of the size and scope of the task I'd embarked on. It soon became apparent that there was some commonality between the Orient and Racer branded versions. Money was a little tighter back then, so I couldn't always afford to buy each and every new model variant that I encountered. So I reluctantly passed on a few. One such was a RACER branded J39002-70, which was listed on Milanuncios.com during the first month of my 'Voyage of Discovery'.

It sold, to my chagrin, on 10th September 2103. I remember kicking myself at the time.   I consoled myself by purchasing a real piece of junk / beater from a UK eBay seller - it was the Orient branded version of the same watch - a J39002-70 (though at the time I wasn't sure the RACER branded version actually shared the same case model number). The saga of that watch, and its transformation into something half presentable is documented in another thread in this forum section.

Eventually I ended up with that much re-hashed 'bitza' and two decent original examples of the Orient J39002-70 and its gold plated sibling, the J39902-70.

Underneath that photo, in my last post in that thread, on April 14th, 2017, I wrote:

Now all I need is the RACER branded version I missed buying back in August 2013.  Patience is a virtue (if not one of mine).

Patience might not be one of my virtues, but Tenacity is. I never give up - especially when faced with 'Logistical' challenges. Since my last post in that other thread, I've actually seen a couple more Orient branded J39002-70's advertised on the Italian classified site, Subito.it. But search as I might, on all the usual Spanish classified sites: Milanuncios.com, SegundoMano.es (now Vibbo.com) and Todocoleccion.net, I still couldn't find another RACER branded version to fill that niggling void in my collection. Prompted by Romanian forum member Andrei's (gogusrl) success in finding that bargain-priced different variant of J39029-70 on there (see my post higher up this page, dated December 17, 2019 at 2:24 PM), I also started searching on Wallapop.es. Lo and behold what should I find but ....

https://es.wallapop.com/item/reloj-racer-orient-cronografo-401437163

The problem was, if you translate the last three words of the Spanish seller's descripton it reads: I do not ship. It isn't shown in my cropped screen print of the listing, but it had been there listed in plain sight, since September 17th, 2019 !  I first stumbled across the listing some three months later on 18th December 2019.

The listing had already received some 273 views at that stage. The watch was evidently in decent condition and the price was 'right' as far as I was concerned, which all pointed to the stubborn parochial-minded seller being unwilling to ship it within Spain (let alone to the UK). But I tried to persuade him.  Turns out that he actually lived in Guardamar Del Segura (rather than Almarjal, shown on the location map). It's a reasonable sized seaside resort town on the Costa Blanca. Needless to say, a quick Google search confirmed that Guardamar has a Correos post office, as one might expect. That made absolutely no difference. 

My next recourse was to attempt to seek assistance from a fellow watch enthusiast. I started a thread on the Spanish watch forum, Reloges-Especials.com asking for help. I'd already searched their user base, looking for any members who might have stated their profile location was Guardamar. Found a couple, but they were both newbies, who hadn't posted in literally years. I did get one mildly encouraging reply from one possibly helpful poster, but he was located in Benidorm, 90 Kms away.

More by luck than judgement, I googled Guardamar Del Segura and came across a YouTube video. It's one of possibly hundreds of videos uploaded by an ex-pat Brit named Matt Wilkie, a prolific YouTuber, who has an apartment in Torre La Mata (hence his nickname 'Matt La Mata'), which is only 7 Kms south of Gaurdamar. Although he was to all intents an absolute stranger, I emailed him out of the blue and asked him if he'd be prepared to collect the watch on my behalf. To cut a long story short, although he kindly agreed (much to my surprise), he ultimately let me down. The timing (over Christmas) wasn't right. 

However I did have another card up my sleeve. This is where my lack of patience comes in. My brother has a holiday home in Villamartin (which is about 20 Kms from Guardamar). It was just a matter of waiting for his next trip out to Spain. I managed to persuade the Spanish seller to reserve the watch for me for a couple of weeks. He eventually (and I suspect reluctantly) gave me his bank account details last Sunday. I paid him immediately, hopefully sealing the deal. He met my brother in a supermarket car park in Guardamar this morning and handed over the watch.

Now all I've got to do is wait a couple more weeks till my brother returns to the UK.

My brother returned home from Spain yesterday evening, carrying the same little black box in his hand luggage. Cheers, Rick. I met up with him round our Mum's house this lunchtime. Got home and quickly rattled off a couple of photos (without taking time to clean it), while the sun was still out. Here's a slightly different wrist shot to the one I just posted in the WRUW thread.

Seiko7A38 at April 23, 2017 at 9:16 AM

Seiko7A38 at November 23, 2014 at 7:40 AM

I messaged the seller twice (in Spanish) but received no reply. So I asked David's help again - in the hope that if he could buy this one on my behalf as well, he could consolidate their shipment. Days and weeks passed. Eventually the seller responded. He would only sell it in a face-to-face transaction for cash. He wouldn't even post it within Spain !!  The seller 'Tony' is in Mostoles, a suburb of Madrid; David lives in the Valencia area, some 350Kms away. So sadly, we had to admit defeat on this one. 

To add insult to injury, after his Segundomano listing expired, Tony listed it on Milanuncios.com (using only one photo - upside down):

http://www.milanuncios.com/relojes/dos-relojes-racer-y-seiko-142807838.htm

I expect there will be others - indeed other dial colour variations of these two versions of J39024-50.

Just so frustrating to let this one slip through my fingers, because of a narrow-minded parochial seller. 

Idly browsing the Spanish free classifieds site Milanuncios.com this lunchtime, not really expecting to find anything, I came across a new-ish listing for a reverse panda dialed Racer J39024-50 - but one which also looked horribly familiar. 

http://www.milanuncios.com/relojes-hombre/reloj-racer-con-correa-de-piel-228967070.htm

Yup it's my old friend Tony from Móstoles, who's still posting photos of the watch upside down (probably taken at the same time as the previous pairing with the Seiko 5) and still hasn't managed to sell it well over two years later. 

Speaking of flakey sellers (per my recent post in another thread in this section), last week, while I was browsing the proverbial minefield that is the Spanish classifieds site Wallapop, what should I come across but two old (but still theoretically current) adverts dating back to November 2017 ....

http://es.wallapop.com/item/reloj-racer-187377537

http://es.wallapop.com/item/reloj-racer-correa-de-piel-189350774

Both using the same upside-down photo of his RACER J39024-50 !!

At the beginning of the month, Romanian forum member 'gogusrl' (a.k.a. Andrei) emailed me a link to another RACER J39029-70 with the off-white Roman numeral dial (see my previous post, higher up the page, dated December 17, 2019 at 2:24 PM), that he'd found listed on the Spanish free classifieds site Milanuncios.com.

http://www.milanuncios.com/relojes-de-coleccion/reloj-marca-racer-modelo-tean-coleccion-317288977.htm

There were 9 photos embedded in the listing, but some were very similar, so I've only bothered to upload 5 of them here.

I did make contact with the Spanish seller, with a view to possibly buying it. He agreed to ship it to UK, but wanted far too much for postage, IMHO. I told him so. It wasn't in such good cosmetic condition as the previous example, so I didn't pursue it. Looks like it may have been sold, because the listing has since disappeared. 

I should probably be posting this in another thread in this forum section:

Orient J39 - variations on a theme part # 99 (ones that got away)

(or even in this related thread). But seeing as it was a RACER branded version ....

Last Sunday, I spotted this J39723-70 listed on the Spanish free classifieds site Wallapop.es. The advert was titled simply Reloj Racer, but it did surprisingly include the model number in the description.

http://es.wallapop.com/item/reloj-racer-474207191

It was another gunmetal coated version, but with a white dial.The seller was asking only 50 Euros, so naturally I was interested in buying it. As you can see from my screen print, I was the 5th person to view the advert. I messaged the seller right away, asking if was willing to ship to the UK. He didn't reply. I followed up with further messages during the week. The seller finally replied late this afternoon:

Lo siento. Ya lo he vendido - translates as: I'm sorry. I have already sold it. 

Due to the shipping delays caused by COVID-19 restrictions, I've not bothered searching all the usual Spanish classifieds sites as diligently as I normally would. Some of them, particularly Wallapop, which seems to be frequented by the flakiest of Spanish sellers, throws up enough obstacles under normal circumstances. But I have continued to search Todocoleccion.net on a regular basis. Yesterday evening, I won a couple of auctions for NOS RACER J39's on there. 

They were listed last week, by a seller whom I'd dealt with before. In all honesty, I could quite easily have passed on the first one. It was another J39024-50 with the 'Reverse Panda' dial, which had at one point frustratingly eluded me, but I'd since added a couple of almost NOS examples to my collection.

http://www.todocoleccion.net/relojes-antiguos-pulsera/reloj-pulsera-racer-cronografo-quartz-funcionando-correa-original-piel-negro-sin-estrena~x204128401

I put in a single bid (only just slightly over the opening bid price). Nobody else bid and I won it for just that - 65 Euros. 

I was rather more keen to win the second Racer J39 listed listed by the same seller. It was the white dialed version of the J39928-70. Coincidentally, I'd bought the black dialed version from the same Spanish seller on Todocoleccion, back at the end of November last year (see my post near the top of this page). I already had the white dialed Orient branded (J39930-70) equivalent, which I'd bought off the Swedish classifieds site, Tradera.com, in December 2016, so this variant would bring me another step towards completing 'the set'.

http://www.todocoleccion.net/relojes-antiguos-pulsera/reloj-pulsera-racer-cronografo-quartz-funcionando-correa-original-piel-sin-estrenar-~x204127757

I had some competition from another bidder on that one, but still managed to win the auction for a very reasonable 81.35 Euros.

Here's a slightly different Q&D  'as received' wrist shot, to the one I've just posted in the WRUW thread, of that dressy little RACER J39928-70, which finally arrived from Spain late yesterday afternoon, having taken a full month to get here (delayed by COVID-19 shipping restrictions). If you right-click and 'open image in new tab', the full-size photo clearly shows the chevron pattern on the dial.

Remember that gunmetal RACER J39723-70 with a white dial, that I missed out on Wallapop.es at the end of February ? If not just scroll a little way back up the page.

Well, nearly 6 months later, I've just bought it - for 4 times the price. At least it appears to be exactly the same watch, with a similar ding on the top RH corner of the watch case. It came in an identical looking black generic cardboard box too.

It was listed last weekend, by Spanish eBay seller scufutzz, whom I've reluctantly dealt with before, with a 'pie-in-the-sky' Buy-it-Now price of 249.99 Euros - and the option to make an offer.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274467954538

Rare Racer Team Collection J39723-70 ORIENT J3920 

Similar to Seiko 7A38 caliber

Working conditions

New battery inside

Missing gasket on the back case

Some knicks and scratches are present on the cristal, case and strap

Any doubts just ask before buying

Customers from US please ask shipping availability

Will ship via UPS on the UE

Suspecting that it was exactly the same watch, I was sorely tempted to send him an offer for 49.99 Euros, but thought the better of it and instead offered 50 Euros less than his heftily marked-up asking price, which he immediately accepted.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?viewitem&item=274467954538

That RACER J39723-70 arrived this morning. Here's a slightly different wrist shot to the one I posted in the WRUW thread. Similarly almost 'as received'. The bracelet was missing a couple of adjustment links, slighty too small to fit my 7½" wrist, so I had to steal one from my other gunmetal J39723-70. Plus I fitted a new case-back gasket (which the Spanish seller had stated was missing in his description). While I was at it, as a matter of course, I replaced his under-sized replacement battery with the correct #394 size.

Seiko7A38 at November 10, 2017 at 11:00 AM

I'm not sure whether it was that second minor disappointment that had acted as a subconscious deterrent, but I hadn't actively searched for any more RACER J39's since. Todocoleccion.net has continued to send me links to the odd Racer watch (and all sorts of other irrelevant crap), but no more J39's. I hadn't looked in on the other two Spanish classified sites: Vibbo.com (formerly segundomano.es) or Milanuncios.com in weeks. Nothing on the latter (apart from Tony from Mostoles J39024-50, which is still being automatically re-listed - ad nauseam). 

Normally, with Vibbo.com, I'd only look at the first page of search results, which displays 24 large thumbnails and usually anything newly listed in the last two weeks or so. As I hadn't looked in a while, I scrolled down the second page, where I spotted this thumbnail of a 'reloj racer' listed on 17th October. Obviously (to my eyes at least) - a RACER J39.

http://www.vibbo.com/vizcaya/reloj-racer/a108666290

There's no mention of any model number; the brief description translates as: Racer watch, gold hands and steel casing. But I'm going to hazard an educated guess that it's another previously unseen dial colour variant of the J39710-70 (see top of the page). This dark dial colour - not quite a true black, was used in the equivalent Puma Y19001-70 and Y19201-70 models. Obviously it's been fitted with some horrible non-original replacement bracelet.

Problem is the seller 'Peter' clearly has no idea of a realistic value for this watch and is asking a 'pie-in-the-sky' 240 Euros for it - which probably explains why it's still there, unsold. 

Sounds familiar ?

The watch's dial appears to be a lighter grey and the overall condition of the watch rather more worn, in these harshly flash-lit photos, than it did nearly 3 years ago. The Spanish seller (assuming it is the same person) is using a different username 'Mikel' rather than 'Peter', but their location of Bilbao and postcode of 48014 are the same as in the previous listing. The strangest coincidence is that in this new set of photos, the watch is displaying the same day and date SAB 25 and exactly the same time 9:08 and 10 seconds as it was in the previous photos !! The other significant difference is a dramatic reduction in price from the previous ridiculous 240 Euros to 'only' 100 Euros. Still rather too high, IMO, given the overall condition, assuming it's a non-runner, needing the minimum of a new battery.