- 7A38-7280-Gold-GoldFace-(710Ldial)-WrongSub-dialHands-Instagram-lord_of.the_watches.jpg (213.71 KiB) Viewed 1560 times
I was about to add a cheeky comment: 'Don't you mean a 7A38-728A ?' when my unerring sense of Déjà Vu kicked in. You see, I'd actually fabricated something very similar myself, 10 years ago, when I was trying to fill a void in my collection. I later realized my slight oversight.
This is real anorak-level stuff 
and it's very subtle. 
Now, unless this is some rare undocumented 'Italian market special', there are 4 known gold-tone 7A38-728x variants:
7A38-7280 SAA124J with the white 7250XS14 Arabic number dial - generally a worldwide export model.
7A38-7285 (model code and dial part number unknown) - locally produced ZFM version of above for Brazil
7A38-7289 SAA112J with the gold 7250XG14 Arabic number dial - the US export market model variant and ....
7A38-728A SAA130J with the gold 710LXG18 dial (also used in 7A38-7190 SAA056J) - a German market model.
Back in the very early days of my 7A38 collecting (over 10 years ago), I'd initially been concentrating on acquiring examples of every variant of Seiko 7A38-727x and 7A38-728x. Having created my own 7A38-xxxx Excel spreadsheet database in mid-2009, I knew what theoretically existed. At that stage, I hadn't actually seen a gold-tone 7A38-728A, but quickly interrogating Seiko Oceania's database, it seemed a relatively simple matter to cobble one together. So that's exactly what I did. I took the 710L dial / movement from a gold-tone 7A38-7190, with badly worn plating and transplanted it into a second string gold-tone 7A38-7289 case / bracelet. The resultant watch is on the right of this trio.
- rsz_l-r-7a38-72807a38-72897a38-728a-p1020630.jpg (201.68 KiB) Viewed 1549 times
O.K., so it had the wrong (7A38-7289) case-back fitted, but it served as a placeholder. I started seeing a few genuine gold-tone 7A38-728A's on eBay Germany and eventually bought myself a half-decent example in March 2012 for €82,50. Here's an old wrist shot of it. I've probably taken another couple since, but this one serves to illustrate my point nicely.
- rsz_7a38-728a-gold-goldface-mine-wristshot-p1201308.jpg (217.15 KiB) Viewed 1535 times
By that time, I'd already realized my little oversight in creating a 'make-do' cobbled together franken. Notice that the sub-dial hands are black with gold bosses. They're Seiko p/n 04E14AL. The gold 710L dial in a 7A38-7190 SAA056J uses all-black sub-dial hands - Seiko p/n 04E14AB. Hence the reason I say lord_of.the_watches 7A38-728? is a wrong un.
