Seiko 7A38 - by the numbers

Yesterday, renowned collector James Dowling (a.k.a. Mister Rolex) announced on Instagram that he intends to cull his Seiko collection, which will mean selling off his 7Axx's (or deaquisition them, as he put it).



James' post includes 10 photos, among them various 7A28's - three Giugiaro's: Steering Wheel, Black Aliens and Cyclist; a Yacht Timer and probably the most intriguing of all, his 7A28-7020 SPR007J 'Bond' with military case-back markings.


Amusingly, the photo of the case-back, with engravings connected to the Royal Navy's Hydrographic Survey department, is the same image James posted in a thread on the old archived forum where the watch was briefly discussed. It'll be interesting to see what it makes when it comes to market and whether it goes to a 007 fan or military watch collector.

You may recall me posting a 7A48-7000 moonphase a little while ago that a kind friend sent me and I restored to working order; after I posted the story of that on insta James contacted me and asked if I would look at his 7A48-7000 for him which he said he had bought years ago and it's not worked since the day he got it. I replied saying I'd be happy to have a look of course, but radio silence from him after that. And then a week or two later I saw the post you are referring to where he says he will be refocusing his collection (in fact you can see my 'like' of it in your screengrab coincidentally) which made me think maybe that was why he didn't come back to me. In fact I seem to remember in the comments under his post someone suggested selling all the goodies to you as a job lot...

Hi Phil.
Well I've re-read the comments on James' post and I can't see any that hints that I should be the one buying his 7Axx goodies. Someone wrote: Have @mith723 (Mithra Neuman) over for a visit. In truth I'm not sure whether James's collection includes anything that I might be interested in buying. I don't collect 7A28's (only 7A38's and derivatives) and the only 7A38 I've ever seen him post photos of is his titanium JDM 7A38-7030. I already have one in better condition.

Bloody marvellous !! I write something like: the only 7A38 I've ever seen him post photos of and ....
Yesterday evening, James posted this mint-ish 7A38-7140 SAA051J for sale on Instagram, asking €750 Euros:



I'm pretty certain I'd never seen him post photos of that 7A38-7140 before, so to make sure, I ran a search on my photo folders. All I found were a couple of wrist shots of his titanium 7A38-7030 SJS018 that I'd saved. As a 'sanity check', I trawled through my stored images of 7A38-7140's. I didn't find anything, but it lead me to discover where he bought it, on SCWF Trading Post in December 2017.

Nice to see that he's not scalping; he paid $600 (or maybe he haggled a bit) in 2017 and five years later is not asking for all that much more. I think that's reasonable and not a bad price for what I would say is a fairly uncommon reference? (But I'll bow to your better knowledge of course).

Bow ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQsbptlgLWU LOL !!