Some birds can't be caged
Introduction
Gosh it’s such a quiet week this week on the Yahoo Auctions front, I’m going to have to go a little further afield to find some content - read on to find out what it is!
Dominic Toretto
Grand Seiko 5646-7040
Kicking off this week with a perennial favourite around these parts - the Grand Seiko 5646-7030.
A few months after I had first started to collect vintage Grand Seiko, I saw a photo of one of these and couldn’t believe my eyes! It felt like an age before I managed to find one for myself, but in reality it was probably only a few months.
I’m pretty certain that more of these have turned up so far this year than in any previous year - this is the 12th I believe. For a comparison, according to the archived auctions, in 2015 just a single example sold on Yahoo Japan!
Dial and case look great (although the former could clearly do with a good clean!), but whilst the movement is reported to be running, the seller does state “the time is off”, so work on the assumption that this will be needing an immediate service.
Inner box for a 44GS or 62GS
44GS inner boxes always fetch good money, and this looks to be a particularly well preserved example.
Of course it’s the far rarer outer box that is the real prize, and those usually turn up together with the inner box, so if you are after the set, you’re probably best off being patient, otherwise you’ll end up with two of the inner boxes!
Inner box for the 57GS
Once again we see just the inner box, and the same comments made for the 44GS box above also apply here.
One of the interesting things about this box is that it was used not just for the 57GS, but also for the 46999 Seiko Liner Chronometer, and the 49999 King Seiko Chronometer, so there are always plenty of collectors looking out for this one.
Despite what the auction headline says however, this is not correct for the first Grand Seiko.
And try as I might, that’s all I can find to put in the recommended section this week from auctions in the Grand Seiko category that have bids on them. But never fear, let’s dig a little deeper into the listings…
Grand Seiko 6156-8010
![Seiko SEIKO 6156-8010 Grand Seiko Day Date Automatic Winding Men's _745759 [ev10]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!tG4Z!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc0e55e43-3855-4403-aef3-140c1305b91c_1000x1000.jpeg "Seiko SEIKO 6156-8010 Grand Seiko Day Date Automatic Winding Men's _745759 [ev10]")
Whilst I have featured lots from this seller before, many of his listings never make the recommended section because he tends to list things with an (initially) relatively high minimum bid price.
However, if the watch doesn’t sell, then over time he reduces the price until it does. The problem with this strategy is how to find those listings - I’m pretty sure that because he simply adjusts the minimum bid price, the watch doesn’t get ‘officially’ relisted, and so will not be seen by anyone who sorts the Yahoo listings by the “new arrival order” option, and nor will they be seen by anyone who sorts the listings on descending order of the number of bids.
Which means…
You will only find listings like this one if you specifically search for the reference number, or go through everything he has listed. Something that perhaps I should consider doing on a more regular basis.
Currently he has over 500 Grand Seiko’s on Yahoo Japan (just watch out for the two print dial firsts that are in cases far too late for the dial).
So that’s the back story, now onto the key thing. This watch’s minimum bid price has now dropped to just 138,403 Yen including sales tax. That’s well under $1,000, which is a ridiculous price for an example of this reference in the condition as presented.
Sure, it may not be the best condition “Special” on the market right now…
… but if it closes for the minimum bid price this week (only 8 people have it on their watch lists), it would represent outstanding value. And if it doesn’t close? Well, we’ll just have to wait and see what price it drops to next!
Oh - and if you’re having a sense of deja vu here, you’re not alone, because I’ve just realised that I featured this exact same listing back in July, when the asking price was 153,780 Yen.
As was the case then, the watch is also listed on Rakuten, so if you don’t want to take your chances in the closing minutes, you can buy it right now (or, if it doesn’t sell this week, you can choose to wait for the usual FromJapan 5% Rakuten discount that commences at 12:01am Japan time on Wednesday).
It’s not a vintage Grand Seiko, but I like it
Seiko Cronos Special Finish
Now here is a watch I would just love to give a spin on the robot.
The Cronos “special finish” is one of those many sleeper hits in the vintage Seiko catalogue that is getting an ever growing number of admirers in the collecting community. The reasons are pretty obvious when you take a closer look!
A “mint” example of one of these in its original box and complete with original price tag (just 8,600 Yen!) sold on Yahoo last year for 189,000 Yen, so I wouldn’t be surprised if someone is out to nab this in the last minute for the 150,000 Yen minimum bid.
From further afield…
A Grand Seiko 4420-9000 late dial at Loupe This
This is a very well traveled and storied watch, having first appeared on Loupe This back in May, when it was featured in this very newsletter, and ended up selling for $3,740.
So what’s it doing back at Loupe This? Well, as I’m sure many of you will know, just a couple of months after selling at Loupe This, the exact same watch turned up at Wind Vintage, having somehow picked up boxes and accessories for an entirely different reference on its trip from the west to the east coast of the USA.
Magically, it also warped from what I had described as
“certainly one of the better examples of a 44GS that you would expect to find, although the case does have a few minor marks, and there is a little softening of the case edges.”
into - as claimed by Wind Vintage - an “unpolished” watch.
Originally listed by Wind Vintage as a “4420-9090”, and described as “a very sophisticated vintage timepiece”, the asking price was $6,900. A month or so later, and the price was dropped to $3,900, with the watch now being described as “a somewhat sophisticated vintage timepiece, and more importantly it is cheap” with the added recommendation that “For the very few people in the world who aspire to own a vintage Grand Seiko, this is might be a fun thing to wear in the privacy of your home”.
Charming.
In its final appearance on the Wind Vintage website, the watch was listed as having been sold for $900. Unsurprisingly, Wind Vintage have scrubbed all records of the watch from their own website, but fortunately the Internet Archive was there to record the whole sorry story.
Loupe This have confirmed that it the original purchaser of the watch from them back in May who has reconsigned it with them, and currently the bidding is standing at $1,599 with five days still to go.
I must say - all credit to Loupe This for actually going to the effort of completely re-shooting the watch for its second appearance. I can’t imagine many dealers would go to the expense of doing that for the same watch just 6 months down the line (and among the larger online enterprises, their presentation of watches is probably the best of the lot)!
Naturally given its travels and rather “interesting” history, I doubt the watch will end up closing for what it did back in May, but, maybe some might actually find that history to be an interesting talking point when wearing the watch over a quiet dinner with friends in the privacy of their own home ;)
A platinum cased example of the first Grand Seiko at Christies Hong Kong auction
You can imagine my surprise when I was looking through the online catalogue for the upcoming Christies auction in Hong Kong to stumble across lot 2210!
This is the first time that an example of the legendary platinum cased first Grand Seiko has turned up in a live auction outside Japan, and I must say it is very tempting to pop over to Hong Kong to witness the auction live.
Platinum “Firsts” are few and far between - I have records of fewer than a dozen examples, with the earliest dating from May 1961 (it has a carved logo dial), and the latest from the final month of production of the first Grand Seiko in August 1963. The watch can be found in carved logo, raised logo SD, and raised logo AD dial variants.
Interestingly (and many thanks to Roland who spotted this) the watch at Christies is the exact same one that was listed at Japanese pawn shop House Kihiroba earlier this year for 8 million Yen.
How it ended up at Christies we don’t know. It would certainly have been a very ballsy move for someone to have purchased it for the asking price and then immediately consigned it to Christies Hong Kong (particularly in the current auction market climate), and it’s extremely unlikely for a Japanese pawn shop to have consigned it themselves. One possible scenario is that the individual who had consigned it with Kihiroba decided after it had sat unsold for a while to withdraw it, and offer it through Christies instead.
Whilst I know that there are quite a few ‘regular’ watch collectors who have expressed interest in acquiring an example of this reference to sit amongst their Pateks, Rolexes and the like, I’m not sure that the quality of this particular example is going to be good enough for them to chase very strongly. It’s definitely a watch to be viewed in person though - the staining on the upper portion of the dial is a lot more evident in Christies lighting than it was on the original listing on Kirihoba. How it looks in the metal will have a big impact on how well it does.
Christies have in their infinite wisdom chosen to hide both the case and movement serial numbers, but if you ask nicely (and I did), they will provide the first three digits of each. The case serial indicates production in April of 1963, and the movement number starts 124. Whilst this is the first example of a platinum Grand Seiko from that month that I have come across, there is absolutely no concern here over the legitimacy of the watch offered, and a movement number commencing 124 is certainly feasible for this period.
The watch is listed with an estimate of HKD 160,000 to 320,000 (roughly $15-$30K US), so there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that someone will be treating themselves to an early Christmas present!
(Just to follow up on last week’s newsletter, the filled gold carved logo transitional dial first Grand Seiko at Sotheby’s ended up selling for $12,360 - a very respectable result indeed in the current auction market, and significant premium on what I originally sold it for.)
Otto
The first Grand Seiko in stainless steel with black dial
Well this is a new one - at least I don’t recall seeing one of these before?
From the guy who is always churning out fake stainless steel cased examples of the first Grand Seiko comes a variation on the familiar theme - this time with a black dial.
Would it be cool had this ever existed originally? Sure. Is it cool that it exists now? Nah.
Seiko Liner Chronometer
This week I thought I’d pick something different from our friend, just as a warning that it’s not just vintage Grand Seiko that he deals in. As usual, avoid everything.
Grand Seiko 6145-8000 “Cross dial”
This is a relisting of the auction featured last week for a rather intriguingly dialed 6145-8000. I’ll refer you back to last week’s newsletter for the details, but for some reason the auction was canceled, so here it is again.
Grand Seiko 5722-9990 with 43999 SD dial
“I replaced it with a new windshield”, the seller says in the listing, conveniently forgetting to mention that he also replaced the medallion with a fake one, the crown, and - most bizarrely - the dial.
The dial looks legit to me, although it’s not exactly in the best condition. I guess this is just a watch that someone at some point put together from a bunch of donor watches they had lying around.
July 1965 case with a 53xxxxx movement number is certainly within the realms of possibility, so I guess at least those two parts belong together!
Redone coloured dial summary
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”, so be careful out there.
As usual - I do very much look forward to your thoughts and feedback in the comments below!
The real highlights were learning the rest of the story on some of these. The 44 was hysterical as soon as I found out it wasn’t my recent transcontinental sale
TGSG - where your questions are anticipated, and your answers are forthcoming.