7A38-7020 SAA009J bezel manufacturing variations

[Seiko7A38]

Clearly the most familiar feature of the stainless 7A38-7020 SAA009J (and the US equivalent 7A38-7029 SAA013J) is its 12-sided bezel with dummy rivets, which somehow managed to earn it that irksome 'Royal Oak' misnomer 'nickname.
The bezel's part number is 8233809.

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According to Seiko's database the same part number is used on all three variations (J1, J8 and J9) of 7A38-7020 / -7029. However, over the years, I've noticed, particularly with a few 7A38-7020 SAA009's that the 'dummy rivets' of their bezels were considerably larger than the accepted 'norm'. One such 'big rivet' example popped up on Instagram yesterday.

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The bezel on that watch may have been refinished (lightly polished), but I don't think it's an optical illusion. I haven't deliberately avoided buying any 7A38-702x's with 'big rivets', but checking my own watches (there are another 3 lesser examples besides, plus a couple of similarly cased frankens), and all are fitted with what I'd consider to be 'the norm'.

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[Seiko7A38]

In fact, I had briefly mentioned this apparent anomaly in a post in another thread in this forum section, last year:

Not the first genuinely NOS stainless 7A38-7020 (as opposed to so many other lesser examples) I've seen over the years. One that I specifically remember was posted on SCWF, by Spanish member Covita (Paco), to possibly less acclaim than it might have received today, way back in September 2013 (long before the 'Royal Oak' hype started). It wasn't being offered for sale - just shown. The linked photos in that thread were hosted by TinyPic, owned by PhotoBucket, who discontinued their free hosting services in September 2019. Fortunately I'd already saved them.

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Something noteworthy in that later example (from July 1984) are the much larger 'dummy rivets' cast into the bezel.

That example was NOS and certainly hadn't been refinished !