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I have a couple of others besides, with acceptable levels of plating wear, fitted with teju lizard straps. But what do you do if you've acquired a well-worn example with noticeable plating loss ? There are three options: One is to leave it 'as is' and use it as a 'beater'. Another is to get it professionally re-plated, which assuming the plater achieves a decent result, will likely prove prohibitively expensive and cost more than the re-finished watch is worth. The other option, taken by most watch-botchers, is to strip off the remaining plating and polish the case.
This erstwhile gold-tone 7A38-7260 was listed earlier this morning by a devious Italian eBay seller, with an absolutely ridiculous Buy-it-Now price of $390 Euros - probably more that 4 times its current real worth, especially now they've stripped all its gold plating. They class the condition: Very nice piece in good general conditions of conservation.
https://www.ebay.it/itm/Seiko-7A38-7260 ... 4772656657
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I'd opine that it's a bit late to think about adding a case-back protection sticker !!
Note the description includes the phrase: 'Cassa in cromata', implying that the case has been chrome plated.
For your delectation (or disgust) there are 10 additional photos of this polished turd embedded in description.
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Studying a couple of them more closely, for example this side-on shot, in view of the less than satisfactory finish ....
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I suspect the case has actually been NICKEL plated, which is one of the intermediate stages, prior to gold plating.
They listed it early this morning, but I've been busy doing other stuff, so hadn't had time to write it up before now.
Rather than start another thread (or change the title of this one) I'm going to add it on here. This morning, he listed what once was a 7A38-6010, purporting to be: “Molto bello e ricercato, in buone condizioni generali di conservazione".
That bead-blasted badly-botched misrepresented mess, the remnants of what once was a 7A38-6010 is back on eBay, re-listed earlier this morning ! 