My 7A38-6020 SAA041J with additional case-back stampings

[Seiko7A38]

I've recently resumed uploading photos to my Instagram account (@seiko7a38collector), after a two month hiatus. This is my second attempt at infiltrating Soshul Meedya - my original Instagram account (@seiko7a38forum) was annoyingly 'mysteriously' deleted in mid-January, after I'd made some 100+ posts and amassed nearly 350 followers ! You can read the sorry tale of woe here on the old forum. After I'd initially rushed to upload the first half a dozen photos to my new account (to less acclaim, in terms of likes received), I made a conscious decision not to upload any more, until I'd surpassed the '100 followers' mark, which finally occurred at the weekend.

Whereas I kicked off my original account by uploading photos of watches that would garner likes quickly, in a fairly random order (from memory, my first was a nice wrist shot of one of my 7A38-7029's), I had decided that my new account would follow an orderly fashion - by the numbers. Starting with the numerically lowest 7A38-6000 and eventually working all the way through to 7A38-7295. In fact, I've deviated from the path already. To group the smaller 'divers' together, I'd so far gone 7A38-6000, 7A38-6010, 7A38-6030 and 7A38-6040. This morning I belatedly uploaded a photo of my stainless 7A38-6020 SAA041J.

[Seiko7A38]

This is my most recently acquired example, currently in the best cosmetic condition, which I purchased off eBay Italy around this time last year, for a pleasing remarkably low Buy-it-Now price of 199 Euros. As received, the watch was in typical average worn condition, with faded bezel numbering, dial printing and lightly scuffed. I refurbished it by fitting a NOS replacement bezel, crystal, dial, minute marker ring and bracelet attachment pins. Here's a couple of 'before and after' shots. The full story is documented on page 5 of the old forum's 7A38-6020 SAA041J model thread.

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One thing that possibly could have done with improvement was the case-back. Here's two partial posts from the thread.

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As you can see, after some deliberation, I elected to leave the case-back as was, unrestored, complete with the two additional serial numbers 23224 and 08170 (stamped in slightly different font sizes). I honestly hadn't thought any more about them, until this morning, when I came across the original photos again, while going through my folders, prior to uploading that old wrist shot to Instagram.

[Seiko7A38]

As readers will possibly be aware, I don't do 'military'. But it got me wondering whether these additional serial number stampings might be issue numbers of some kind. Out of curiosity I did a quick bit of googling on the subject.

Found this Worn & Wound blog article: https://wornandwound.com/military-watch ... taly-pt-2/

It's specifically about Italian military issued watches and includes these couple of paragraphs (but no mention of Seiko):

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Unfortunately, like many W&W articles, it generally lacks detail and substance. There isn't a single photo of a case-back showing the format of serial number stampings used on Italian military issued watches.