Forgive my curiosity, but, what is that?

That's my little octopussy

Introduction

The purpose of this newsletter is to provide guidance on which vintage Grand Seiko auctions on Yahoo Japan might be of interest to collectors. I also detail those “dodgy” listings that you need to avoid.

What you will notice is that this isn’t just a simple list of auction listings - in discussing the merits (and demerits) of the listings I often branch off into a bit of background that I hope will be useful in helping you to learn some of the nuances of collecting vintage Grand Seiko.

This week is a fairly quiet week I’m afraid, with not much else than a handful of examples of the first Grand Seiko to recommend, and the “usual suspects” in the bad guy section.

For those paid subscribers who are reading one of these newsletters for the first time, you can access the archive of all the previous newsletters on the Substack website (or the iPhone and Android apps).

Important note for UK and EEA subscribers -

Yahoo Japan is now actively blocking connections from the UK and the European Economic Area due to the prohibitive costs of adhering to the GDPR regulations for a relatively small number of users.

To get around this for the purposes of this newsletter, links to the auctions detailed will be provided through one of the Japanese proxy companies - FromJapan. Please note that these links may not include every image included in the listing.

Whilst I have been a customer of FromJapan for many years, I do not receive any benefits from using these links.

As is the norm now, I will commence with the good guys.

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James Bond

The first Grand Seiko with raised logo dial

Everything checks out on this October 1962 production first Grand Seiko. A few minor marks on the dial, but I suspect nothing that will put people off.

The steady and consistent price increase on the first Grand Seikos seems to be bringing more out of the woodwork which is great, because demand is definitely increasing for these!

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Grand Sieko 6146-8000 18K gold

Not sure whether it is because of the upcoming Chinese New Year (HNY to any subscribers who are celebrating), but there’s a couple of real treats for lovers of sold 18K gold cased vintage Grand Seikos this week.

First up - on open auction - is an example of the 6146-8000. Now I’ve handled a genuine dead stock one of these (in fact it is listed on Yahoo right now), and it’s clear in comparison that the case here has been repolished, but it’s not as bad as many that turn up, and it is very rare for these to appear without a high minimum starting bid.

If you are interested in one of these but decide to pass on this one, do be very careful when shopping for one that it has the correct “6146-8025TKT” dial. Occasionally these do turn up with incorrect dials taken from the cap gold variant of the same reference number.

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Grand Seiko 5722-9000

And here’s the second open auction of the week for an 18K solid gold cased vintage Grand Seiko. This time around it’s the earliest 18K vintage reference, the 57GS.

I’m currently working on a “primer” article for the 57GS series - which won’t be out for a few weeks as there are literally thousands of sales to catalogue - and have finished cataloguing the Yahoo sales of the 18K 57GS over the past decade.

Suffice to say, there have not been many - just eight in fact - but that may not give the true picture about how difficult it is to get hold of one of these, because there are always several on the market at any one time. It’s just that most sellers stick a high price on them and are happy to wait for years for a sale.

In my view this is definitely the right variant to go for. Despite the 5722-9000T dial code, you will note that the movement is a 430. This is correct for this reference, and I would put a few beers on the serial number indicating production in September 1964 - just in time for them to be offered for sale at the Tokyo Olympics.

The most recent sale of one of these was back in October of last year, where a similar example sold for a little over 1.1M Yen.

The dial on this one isn’t quite as good though, so it might not break 7 figures.

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Grand Seiko 5722-9990

If your budget for a 57GS won’t quite stretch to an 18K gold cased one, here’s a great example of the 5722-9990.

Although this doesn’t have the coarse-knurled crown that I prefer to see on these (because that’s how they were always pictured in the publicity photos of the time), based on the few hundred examples already in my database, it is quite common to find these with the fine knurled crown, and every other aspect of the watch (dial, movement variant, caseback, caseback medallion, production date and movement serial) is correct.

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Grand Seiko 6145-8050 white dial

I ummed and ahhed about whether to include this listing or not. The reason for not including it are pretty obvious - that’s how badly scratched up these faceted crystals can get.

On the plus side though, it comes with its original bracelet, and the seller states it is good enough for up to a 20cm wrist - which means it will have all its links, which is very rare to come across.

Case-wise, it has a lot of wear and tear, but would appear to have never been introduced to a refinisher, which is of course a good thing.

Can you overlook the crystal? Possibly not. But this may well end up being worth it just for the bracelet alone.

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It’s not a vintage Grand Seiko, but I like it

Seiko 68-6000 UTD

At its launch, I suspect that this was the most expensive Seiko ever to be offered for sale.

Given that it made its debut in the 1969 Special Luxury Catalogue alongside not only the first four Grand Seiko VFA’s - including the 6185-8000 with its palladium alloy case and bracelet - but also the Seiko Astronomical Observatory Chronometer, this might come as a bit of a shock.

And from all the remarkable content of that catalogue - the VFA’s, the AOC, a plethora of Grand Seikos in 18K gold cases - it was the 68-6800 that was the lead watch.

At 300,000 Yen, it was no less than 66% more expensive than the Astronomical Observatory Chronometer that featured on the page opposite.

When you consider what it took to bring that watch to market - not least the fact that the movements were sent to Switzerland for the full 45 day Observatory Chronometer testing - it’s hard not to ponder just how challenging it must have been for the very best watchmakers Seiko had on their payroll to create the parts for, and assemble the movement of, the 68.

Whilst it remains an extremely rare and desirable reference today, there are nowhere near as many collectors chasing an example of this as there are the other highlights of the 1969 SLC, and thus - despite how rarely they turn up - these tend to be a relative bargain.

A mint full set sold for 550,000 Yen back in 2020, and the most recent sale was for a very nicely presented example in November last year that sold for around 370,000 yen. That one had its original buckle, which the present watch is missing.

If you do fancy a crack at this one - and I must admit that even with the missing buckle I’m quite tempted myself - note that the seller states it is running around 2 minutes fast per day. Perhaps that isn’t so important on a watch like this, but I rather suspect you are going to need to find a very skilled watchmaker to service it if you want it to be looked after!

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A Grand Seiko 6185-8021 VFA at Antiwatchman

For some bizarre reason someone has decided to put a faceted crystal and an ill-fitting Grand Seiko bracelet on this otherwise nice example of a 6185-8021 VFA.

VFA’s listed with dealers in Japan haven’t been hanging around for long lately, and this one, priced at 1.3M Yen, may get snapped up quite soon as well. The only slight issue - apart from the bracelet and crystal - is that it hasn’t been photographed particularly well, so it’s quite hard to assess the quality of the case.

If you are interested, I’d definitely recommend reaching out to Antiwatchman asking for more photos, and if you do end up purchasing it, let me know and I’ll be happy to send you a new correctly profiled reproduction sapphire crystal.

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Kamal Khan

Fake stainless steel first Grand Seiko

Whether this is a new one or one that we have already seen listed before, I don’t know. It really doesn’t deserve the expenditure of effort required to find out, but it’s almost halfway to its buy-out price of 780,000 Yen, so I think this will find a home.

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Fake Imperial VFA

Our purveyor of the reproduction buckles is back with one of these once more. He’s listed at least two different examples - one with a Nippon Seiko caseback, and one with a Japan Seiko caseback - and you should treat each of them with the same level of contempt.

As with the fake steel first Grand Seiko above, he’s put a much lower buy-out price for this listing - maybe he’ll finally get it off his hands to some poor unsuspecting soul who doesn’t subscribe to these newsletters!

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Grand/King Seiko franken

Pretty sure this one - or at least something remarkably similar - has cropped up before.

Nobody is going to be taken in by this, but perhaps someone might fancy it just for that 4520-7000 dial that hasn’t been on the end of a few decades of UV light?

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Redone coloured dial summary

As usual, I close with the usual reminder to steer clear of any vintage Grand Seikos with coloured dials similar to the above. This is not a comprehensive photo - there are many references that get this “treatment”, and several listings typically appear every week.