Seiko 7A38 - by the numbers

I'd written at some length about the RACER J39723-70 (and its Orient branded equivalent) in a couple of threads on the old archived forum. Naturally in The Spanish 7A38 Inquisition thread and also here in another separate J39 thread.

Sadly, like a few other threads, I seem to have left the latter unfinished. My last post dated 4th July 2019 reads:


Note 'I'll do the promised 3-way shot another time'. I didn't say when. In fact I'd since acquired another Racer J39723-70 in August 2020, in gunmetal finish with a white dial, which I wrote up on page 7 of the Spanish Inquisition thread. Most likely reason I didn't take any more group shots at the time is that I'd remembered the J39723-70 isn't particularly easy to photograph (minor understatement), due to the reflections from its domed flat-bottom crystal.

Anyway, here's the best of my disappointingly lacklustre results from this morning. Side-by-side pair in gunmetal ....


4-way side-by-side shot with my Orient branded version on the left:

So you may be wondering, given the difficulty in photographing the J39723-70, why I got them out in the first place. I'd had another idea. A fortnight ago, I found this period magazine advert, featuring two variants of RACER J39723-70 on the Spanish classifieds site Todocoleccion. It cost me €1 Euro plus postage.


Getting the whole advert in frame and the watch in focus proved almost impossible. The light settings were something of a compromise too. These are the best two shots I managed.

Wrist shots are SO much easier. Here's a slightly different one to that which I just posted in the WRUW thread.