What's goin' on in your head?
I don't know.
Introduction
As you might expect, the week between Christmas and the New Year is a very quiet one for auctions on Yahoo Japan. A quick look reveals that the total number of auctions in the Grand Seiko category at the time of writing stands at just 2,938. This may sound like a pretty high count, but remember that most of these will be recurring auctions with no bids where the seller has set a relatively high starting price.
In a typical week, there might be anything from 3,200 to 3,300 listings, and a quick re-sort of the listings in descending number of bids reveals that there are fewer than a hundred auctions with some “action”.
This will probably turn out to be the shortest newsletter of the year (although at the end I will share a little more on my plans for the upcoming
Substack) - let’s see what we can find!Katniss Everdeen
The first Grand Seiko with raised logo dial
First up this week is a late example of the first Grand Seiko, dating from July 1963. The obvious issue here is the curved wear on the dial running from the 5 to 7 indices, which is a shame because otherwise the watch looks to be in pretty good condition.
Interestingly the second hand is not the one that we would expect, something that might be easily missed because it seems the seller has spookily managed to have the tail of the hand over one of the main hands in every shot that it is visible. Make of that what you will, but a Japanese dealer did tell me once that he believed these straight second hands could well be original to the watches on which they are found.
The final aspect on the downsides is that the crown is definitely incorrect. I’ve discussed crowns on these many times before, and whilst it is generally accepted that the first King Seiko crown on a first Grand Seiko is OK, I would recommend the winning bidder for this watch seek to change the one seen here.
As we saw last week (was anyone here the winning bidder? if so - congratulations!) on rare occasions a correct crown for this reference can turn up. If you are tempted by this one, no need to be put off by the crown - it’s an easy aesthetic fix with a modern reproduction or an original King Seiko one. Or who knows, maybe you’ll get lucky and nab the next legit one that turns up!
Grand Seiko 6156-8010
It’s been a while since an example of the faceted sapphire crystaled and hardened stainless steel cased 6156-8010 Special has been featured in a newsletter, and this one gets a feature because it looks to be in overall very good condition.
The case in particular is very sharp, and what in the initial photo first looks like some oxidation of the rehaut I suspect may well just be a reflection in the crystal edge of something external. Certainly from the later photos it doesn’t look as though there is any issue there -
One slight negative to highlight is that the crystal is chipped in a number of places, most notably the top and bottom edges which usually are the first areas to suffer since they are of course those most raised above the body of the watch.
Grand Seiko 4522-8010
Without a doubt the star lot this week is this simply gorgeous example of the 18K gold cased 4522-8010 which, despite only having been listed yesterday, has already garnered a lot of attention.
It is extremely rare to come across one of these as nice as this - I would prefer to have additional and more detailed images of the case to assess it’s true condition, but the majority of the original caseback protection sticker remains in place which is always a good sign. Whether or not the case is unpolished I would have to leave prospective bidders to decide for themselves, but certainly from this photo the signs are encouraging -
The watch is presented with its correct and original 18K buckle (although note that the strap itself is definitely not the original one).
Highly recommended.
They’re not vintage Grand Seikos, but I like them…
I think most people know by now that I’m a bit of a fan of the early Seiko digital watches. If you are too, you could do a lot worse than to keep an eye on this guy’s auctions this week.
Three choice picks in NOS condition, all of which made their debut in the second volume of Seiko’s 1977 catalogue (it was a very good year for digital watches!).
Seiko M158-5000
Seiko’s first digital world timer.
Seiko A039-5000
Seiko’s first digital “multi-alarm” (and actually, joint holder of the title of Seiko’s first digital alarm, alongside the A031-5000 that debuted in the same catalogue).
Seiko A159-4000
Seiko’s first multi-function digital featuring both an alarm and a chronograph.
President Alma Coin
Grand Seiko 43999 SD dial
One person who clearly hasn’t taken a holiday break is our regular contributor, who this week gets featured with his faked SD dialed 43999.
Avoid.
Grand Seiko 43999 SD dial
Here’s another SD dialed 43999 to avoid, and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that this watch originated with the seller of the one immediately above.
The same fake dial, the same overpolished case, and a case that is way too late as well.
Given the relatively low resolution images, it is actually quite hard to make out for certain those pointy A’s, but pointy they are, and note the lack of a top horizontal bar on the letter J.
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.
The upcoming watchdxb Substack
Over the last couple of years I have become increasingly frustrated with the direction that Instagram is headed in. I won’t bore you with the details here, but suffice to say from January 1st 2024, I will no longer be posting new full content to my watchdxb account on Instagram.
Instead, having been delighted with the way that this Substack has developed over the last couple of years, I have made the decision to see how the watchdxb content will be received on the same platform. (Instagram will be solely used to tease content that is published on the new Substack, and - much as it is now for TGSG - if you subscribe to the Substack, you won’t miss a thing if you don’t follow me on Instagram).
That content will primarily fall into three categories -
Watch videos (and where the video features a watch that is not a Grand Seiko, in most instances the watch will be offered for sale - I have far too many watches just sat in cupboards that deserve more loving homes).
Archived high resolution photographs of watches. Whilst I very rarely these days take still images of watches (my “studio” - such as it is - isn’t really set up for still photography any more), I have a vast number of photographs taken over the years of some rather wonderful watches. These images will be made freely available to download for personal use.
And from time to time, musings on watch related matters such as auction and dealer shenanigans.
Whilst there are paid and founding membership tiers set up, unlike here on TGSG Substack, all content will be available to all subscribers. The paid subscriptions are purely for those who would like to express their appreciation for the content by contributing to my beer fund.
If you do fancy signing up, don’t worry about being bombarded with emails. I will certainly be publishing content multiple times a week over there, but will limit the emails and app notifications to just one per week (I think that in the app you are able to set notifications for every time I publish some content should you so wish, but that’s entirely under your control).
Finally, just to clarify on the watches for sale - I won’t ever be offering any vintage Grand Seikos over there (and subscriber discounts offered here on TGSG will not be applicable on watchdxb), but I will in time list modern ones, and I will be kicking off the 'stack with what is very much a vintage Grand Seiko adjacent reference…
The first “newsletter” on the new watchdxb Substack will be published early in the New Year.
As always, if you have any questions or comments on this week’s newsletter, please do feel free to comment below, or start up a thread in the chat!
Hi I was lucky to have win the 1st GS crown last week, thank you.
I had just bought a 3180 that perhaps needs a crown (can't tell as I don't have it in hand yet).
Thank you
Very much looking forward to the new format!!