Seiko 7A38 - by the numbers

I don't think I've mentioned Japanese jewellery designer and watch modder Daisuke Shimizu before on this (new) forum. Readers may also have come across him on Instagram, as I first did, 5 years ago, where he previously posted under the slightly incongruous pseudonym of 'animalworship'. Just over a year ago, that previous account, which had hundreds, if not thousands of followers was deleted. He replaced it with a new account panda.7a38, but recovery of followers has been slow. He also has another Instagram account: @daisukeshimizu.jp which he uses to promote his silver jewellery.

I do remember posting about him on the old archived forum, but it took me a little while to find where I had. Back in October 2018, I added a couple of posts to the old forum's 'Heads Up on yet another 7A38 Franken' thread on page 8.
The second post gave full details of a 7A38 Franken that he listed on Yahoo Japan as a 5-day auction with an opening bid price of ¥128,000 Yen or prompt decision Buy-it-Now price of ¥150,000 Yen.


To my surprise, it actually sold for the ¥128,000 Yen opening bid price - then equivalent to $1138 USD / £870.60 GBP !!


As I wrote at the time: Now that is serious money to pay for somebody else's cobbled together Franken !

More recently, within the last couple of years, he's built himself a couple of 7A38 Panda Frankens. One is a combination of 7A38-6000 and 7A38-6040, which is evidently his favourite and the other is a mixture of 7A28 and 7A38 components. He'd previously posted a number photos of it on his old 'animalworship' Instagram account, which had amassed hundreds of likes. He re-posted one of those photos using his newer panda.7a38 account, in May last year, to rather less acclaim.



I've spent some time analyzing the make-up of the watch before today (from the above and other photos).

Like his previously sold Franken, it appears to be based on a stainless 7A38-706x watch case.
The Tachymeter bezel and minute dial ring are from 7A28-703B (or -7039).
The white upper dial plate is a 710L, from a stainless 7A38-7190 (or -7280).
The black lower dial plate (and Kanji day wheel) is a 603L from a 7A38-6030 (or -6040).
The case-back is from a stainless 7A38-7190.
The beads of rice bracelet is by Movado.

Yesterday evening he* listed it on Yahoo Japan with a buyout price of ¥289,000 Yen - equivalent to just over $2000 !!

https://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/u1106346786


*Although the seller ID is encrypted by Buyee (as d*i*u*e*7*0*7), it's obviously same as the previous - Daisuke971057.

Despite having amassed more than two dozen watchers that Franken Panda went unsold. Hardly surprising at that price. The seller appears to have set the listing up to automatically re-list, because when I checked it was back again re-listed for another 7 days, retaining the same YJ item number.

I was wondering if it might appear on eBay. It has overnight, not listed by Daisuke Shimizu, but by one of the Japanese cross-platform 'proxy' re-sellers japan-shopping-store who's currently listing over 1600 items belonging to other Yahoo sellers, including a titanium 7A38-7030, which was listed on Yahoo a week ago. Their greedily marked-up Buy-it-Now asking price of $2952.25 equates to ¥438,077 Yen at today's exchange rate (versus Daisuke's ¥298,000 Yen/ $2008 USD).

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SEIKO-7A38-P ... 6344309483


The 10 photos are clearly the same images 'borrowed' from the Yahoo Japan listing, uploaded in different order and the description is a direct English translation (presumably using Google).

I was wondering whether Daisuke Shimizu was aware of the unauthorised resale of his watch, so yesterday, for a bit of devilment, I sent him a link to the 'proxy' re-seller's eBay listing, via Instagram. He replied overnight:

He doesn't seem do have done anything about getting the 'scam' eBay listing removed and earlier this afternoon another Japanese 'proxy' cross-platform reseller made_Japan1 listed it with a similarly marked-up Buy-it-Now price of $2939.90.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/*Excellent++ ... 4955641396

Yahoo Japan seller Daisuke971057 re-listed his 7A38 Franken Panda once again overnight. This time he's reduced the Buyout price by 7.7%, from ¥298,000 Yen to ¥275,000 Yen, equivalent to approx. $1839 USD. I fear he'll have to make further more drastic reductions before he finds a willing buyer.

https://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/u1106346786

I hadn't previously added any updates to this thread, because I'm not sure whether the watch has sold. Daisuke Shimizu continued to re-list it on Yahoo Japan until mid-December 2023, with the price having reverted back to the original ¥298,000 Yen. The last re-listing (same YJ item # u1106346786) shows no evidence of purchase. I've checked his Instagram accounts and there's no indication of it having sold there.

So you can imagine my surprise when I checked my Buyee notifications to find that he'd listed his other 7A38-6000 / -6040 based Franken Panda on Yahoo Japan overnight . The asking price on this one is a mind-blowing ¥398,000 Yen !!

https://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/w1123610077


Google translates the Japanese description (most of it) as follows:


Note: the limited offer expires on 12th February. There's nothing been posted on Instagram to promote it, so far, but I did notice the wrist shot included in the YJ listing photos dates back to an older Instagram post on 10th October 2022.

Daisuke Shimizu's 'limited offer' was supposed to end today (12th February). Indeed, his Yahoo Japan listing did briefly end about half an hour ago, not surprisingly without any bids placed. But I see he's now re-listed it for another 6 days, retaining the same YJ item number, with the price reduced by ¥20,000 to ¥378,000 Yen.

https://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/w1123610077

Daisuke Shimizu 's latest 6-day re-listing (still retaining the same item number) is down another ¥30K to ¥348,000 Yen. But I can't help feeling there's still a very long way to go.

After an absence of four months (it was last re-listed in May, when it again went unsold), Daisuki Shimizu's 7A38-6000 / -6040 based Franken Panda is back on Yahoo Japan, re-listed overnight, with the same ¥348,000 Yen Buyout price.

https://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/n1152023534


The 10 photos are the same ones he'd used in previous listings, just uploaded in a slightly different order.

Daisuki Shimizu continues to re-list his 7A38-6000 / -6040 based Franken Panda without success. In the latest re-listing, he's reduced the Buy-it-Now price to 'only' ¥280,000 Yen, equivalent to approx. $1872.67 USD / £1435.00 GBP.

https://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/n1152023534