It would appear that there are other parallels which might be drawn between long-time profiteering US eBay seller
flobaca and comparative newcomer to the 7A38 scene, UK eBay re-seller
hollizaak007. Indeed, it may have been his earlier attempts to climb on the more lucrative 7A38-702x 'Royal Oak' bandwagon that had confused me a while back.
Readers may recall this post I made at the beginning of July:
Seiko7A38 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 04, 2021 7:12 am
Seiko7A38 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 09, 2021 7:17 amThere's also another possibility pending, so I give you my prediction for one of his future offerings.
Forgive me readers. With hindsight, I seem to have got that prediction wrong.
Whereas that stainless 7A38-7020 certainly looked like typical 'potential flobaca fodder', I now believe that suitably cheap example was snapped up by another, as yet unidentified, competing buyer. Indeed they may have beaten
flobaca to the punch on two occasions.
Not wishing to make excuses for my earlier confusion, it was directly due to eBay's increased encryption of buyer ID's as displayed on the purchase history screen. With hindsight, I now believe in those two instances, the encrypted buyer ID (that I incorrectly assumed belonged to flobaca's alter ego
zenodass44) may in reality have belonged to
hollizaak007. They share three common characters: a, o and z. 'Z' being the one that had thrown me a curved ball at the time.
Whereas I haven't seen
hollizaak007 listing a 7A38-7020 or 7A38-7029 yet, unless I've missed a quick sale, he's certainly considered buying at least one recently. Of more anon, once I've had some food - call it a very late lunch.
This stainless 7A38-7020 in average worn condition, the first on many last month (but unlike the majority, without the 'Royal Oak' misnomer in the title), was listed by a UK eBay seller on 9th July as a 5-day auction, with an over-optimistic opening bid price of £350. I didn't bother taking a screenshot of the listing, but here's half of the seller's 10 photos.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/UEFA-SEIKO-7 ... 4266802504
UEFA SEIKO 7A38-7020 Quartz Chronograph Sports 100 Watch
- rsz_7a38-7020-stainless-grey-ebay-july2021-1.jpg (241.39 KiB) Viewed 13350 times
- rsz_7a38-7020-stainless-grey-ebay-july2021-2.jpg (245 KiB) Viewed 13350 times
- rsz_7a38-7020-stainless-grey-ebay-july2021-3.jpg (244.76 KiB) Viewed 13350 times
- rsz_7a38-7020-stainless-grey-ebay-july2021-8.jpg (203.7 KiB) Viewed 13350 times
- 7A38-7020-Stainless+Grey-eBay-July2021-10.jpg (229.91 KiB) Viewed 13350 times
WatchCount.com's look-up tool shows the listing was live for just over half an hour, that Friday lunchtime, during which time it received only 13 views ....
- 7A38-7020-Stainless+Grey-eBay-July2021-WatchCount.png (71.23 KiB) Viewed 13347 times
.... before selling for an undisclosed best offer:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/384266802504
- 7A38-7020-Stainless+Grey-eBay-July2021-Ended-Sold-BestOffer.png (46.78 KiB) Viewed 13347 times
The
eBay Bidding / Purchase History shows a slightly confusing encrypted buyer ID of 2***a (rather than o***a or z***a), but their feedback rating of 1874 exactly matches the current feedback number of UK eBay re-seller
hollizaak007.
- 7A38-7020-Stainless+Grey-eBay-July2021-BiddingHistory.png (44.11 KiB) Viewed 13347 times
That became academic, when whoever the buyer was (ahem) reneged on the transaction. Given his affinity for listing Seiko 7A38's @ a preferred standard marked-up price of £355, there clearly wasn't enough profit margin to be had.
The UK seller subsequently re-listed it a few times, always as 5-day auctions, sometimes with option to make an offer:
With the opening bid increased to £375,
Again @ £375,
Reduced to £325,
Reduced to £300 and most recently to £275.
It sold again, at lunchtime today, for another undisclosed best offer (presumably less than £275):
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/UEFA-SEIKO-7 ... 4313353159
- 7A38-7020-Stainless+Grey-eBay-August2021-(July2021-re-listed)-Ended-Sold-BestOffer.png (46.74 KiB) Viewed 13325 times
Unfortunately, for reasons best known to the seller, this was
a private listing, with buyer's identity protected:
- 7A38-7020-Stainless+Grey-eBay-August2021-(July2021-re-listed)-BiddingHistory.png (45.88 KiB) Viewed 13325 times
Time will tell whether the 'mystery' buyer turns out to be who I strongly suspect it may well have been.