This rather more attractive example in decent used cosmetic condition, was listed on 30th August, by a 'James Bond' keyword spamming Italian eBay seller, as a 7-day auction with a laughably unrealistic opening bid price of 400 Euros.
I didn't bother taking a screen print of the listing at the time and initially just right-clicked and saved the seller's photos and added it to my eBay watching page, mostly out of curiosity.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Seiko-Cronog ... 4131272600
Seiko Cronografo Quarzo 7A38-724A James Bond 007
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However, I did happen to notice the case-back serial number:
734283 (two digits earlier than the aforementioned 'head only'), making this the lowest 7A38-724A serial number seen to date. That said, even though this model is my favourite variant among the 7A38-724x / 7A38-725x / 7A38-726x case family, I couldn't honestly justify buying another example based on its earlier serial number and especially not at that ridiculously inflated price. Out of devilment, I decided to make the seller a lowball (but realistic) offer of 180 Euros, knowing it was likely to be rejected.
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The seller responded with a counter-offer of 350 Euros. I can't remember whether I declined it or simply ignored it and allowed it to expire. Either way, it's academic, because the seller subsequently ended this listing, because of an error - presumably in the over-optimistic pricing.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/334131272600
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With other irons in the fire, so to speak, I'd almost forgotten all about it. Then yesterday morning, out of the blue, I received an unsolicited message from the Italian eBay seller
allesde38. It was in Italian and literally translated as:
Since you made me a proposal of 180 euros for the Seiko Bond, I can still give it to you for 200 euros.
I didn't cotton on straight away (because obviously he'd ended the listing). But a search on his other items revealed that he'd re-listed it later the same day - in fact just a matter of 10 minutes after ending the previous one. Except he hadn't re-listed it in the conventional manner; he'd created a completely new listing and in doing so had cocked-up the model number in the title
TA38-724A - hence the reason I hadn't seen it before (it hadn't come up in my search results).
Note that he's listed it as a Buy-it-Now this time, rather than an auction, with the price increased to a risible 500 Euros and the shipping cost has also been increased from the previous 30 Euros to 45 Euros (which I drew to his attention).
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Seiko-TA38-7 ... 4139002894
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After a further lengthy exchange of messages, a deal was struck. Nuff said. It's on its way; posted
here this morning.
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I googled that quaint old rural Poste Italiane office and looked it up on Street View out of curiosity. The eBay seller had stated the item location as being Sassari, Italy. I'd incorrectly assumed that was on the Italian mainland and thought no more of it until he emailed me the tracking number, which showed it posted from a small commune,
Suni on Sardinia !
So I suspect it may take a little longer to arrive than usual.
Belated Edit: The Italian eBay seller did eventually get round to ending the listing the following Monday, about the same time the package was passing through Poste Italiane's Centro Scambi Internazionale hub in Milan. Hopefully, despite the implausible reasons given, it will arrive in one piece !
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/334139002894
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