Another 'black' dialed Racer J39 turns out to be BLUE !

[Seiko7A38]

I think I must be going colour-blind in my old age - probably from squinting at too many 'iffy' photos on the Internet.

You may have read this erroneously-titled thread, where I thought I'd finally managed to get hold of a particular dial colour variant of J39908-70 (black with gold sub-dials) that had eluded me. It turned out to be another example of the blue dial with gold-sub-dials - and frankly not in much better condition than the one I already had in my collection.

In hindsight, looking back at the Spanish seller's photos again, even in the small Milanuncios listing images, which I first saw, there was a definite blue tinge to the dial.

[Seiko7A38]

I later wrote another over-confidently titled thread: Snagged 3 black dialed Racers in 24 hours ! It was April 1st.

Whereas NOS is always nice to have, it was the third Racer I spotted on Wallapop yesterday morning that I craved most. I already have a couple of J39026-70 'Breitbling' clones, with burgundy and white dials. The oldest is undoubtedly by far the worst condition J39 in my collection and the second isn't a lot better. This one is certainly no oil painting, but it appears to be in better condition - and it has a black dial, which I hadn't seen before. So I absolutely had to have it.

You can read the full story in my second post of that thread, but here's the sharpest of the Spanish seller's three photos:

Racer-Orient-J39026-70-Gold-BlackFace-Wallapop-(+Vinted)-March2021-2.jpeg (115.63 KiB) Viewed 2942 times

Now is it my eyesight, or does that dial look black ?

[Seiko7A38]

Well it's not ! It's actually a gloriously deep shade of dark metallic blue !!

rsz_p1670057-crop.jpg (234 KiB) Viewed 2933 times

After cleaning the case and pushers, I could have reassembled it, but for the moment, the watch is currently still in pieces. The perennial parts problem with these Orient and Racer J39's. Although it may not have looked so bad in the seller's photos, the crystal was quite badly chipped and scratched. In the past, I have robbed one or two crystals from Orient HFA 7T32 BreitBling parts watches, but I can't keep doing that. I need to find a source of suitable generic replacements, with the correct thickness and polished bevel edge. I may have to resort to getting a batch made.