You know as well as I do decisions made in real time are never perfect.

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.

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).

Going forward, I will be unlocking these newsletters a week after sending them out to paid subscribers. The main benefit is of course alerting paid subs to the auctions that they might be interested in bidding on (and avoiding), but I feel the educational value post-close of the auctions is only fair to share to all.

It’s a pretty busy week this week for both the recommendations and the steer-clears, so I’m using that as an excuse to not detail a couple of listings that I’m personally interested in chasing. You fine people just keep outbidding me on watches I’m looking to buy when I detail them here, so I want to give myself a fighting chance this week!

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.

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

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Jason Bourne

Grand Seiko 4420-9000 (late dial)

Starting this week off with what I’m sure will be a well fought for example of the highly collectible 44GS.

Whilst it is the more common later dial variant, there is still a healthy market for these, as evidenced by the bidding that has already passed 300,000 Yen. As is always the case with auctions, you need to be very careful checking the condition of the watch, and whilst the case here looks to be in excellent shape with no apparent signs of any attempts to recondition it, there does appear to be a small stain at the edge of the dial near the 8 minute marker.

Interestingly, this stain is almost impossible to see in the lead photo, but in the second shot it is pretty clear -

It is pretty minor though, and I expect it won’t put too many people off. Note that there are plenty more photos provided in the body of the description if you scroll down.

Given the watch is being sold on a bracelet, I’m not entirely sure why the seller is also including a GS buckle, especially considering that the buckle is not correct for the 44GS.

The other odd thing about this watch is that the medallion on the caseback is not centered correctly. It can be hard to tell from photos, but certainly it looks to be an original one, rather than a reproduction. I can only assume that it got separated from the caseback at some point in time, and whoever stuck it back on didn’t take sufficient care in aligning it.

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Grand Seiko 5722-9970

At first sight this looks like a regular 43999 AD dialed 57GS, but one look at the auction title text will show you that this isn’t the case - it’s an example of a 5722-9970 Toshiba 25 year employment commemorative watch.

Oddly, the seller doesn’t provide any full on shots of the caseback (possibly because it would have been too awkward to get the bracelet out of the way), but in the angled shots we can see that this is from the first year that Toshiba started awarding these in 1965.

Overall the watch looks to be in great condition, with just a few very minor issues on the dial, strong caselines, and what looks to be a super caseback. Even the crown is correct!

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Grand Seiko 5645-7011

Just a lovely sharp and clean example of the most accessible vintage Grand Seiko reference. Note the description confirms the quickset date is functioning correctly, so that’s one less thing to worry about, but always work on the assumption that you’ll need to service anything from Yahoo Japan unless it is from a specialist dealer who explicitly states the watch has been serviced recently and provides insight into the watch’s performance.

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Grand Seiko 6146-8010 “Arabesque”

Not the best example of an “Arabesque” one could hope to come across, but the lighting is very harsh, so it will really show up any flaws in both the case and dial. This is one of those watches that will almost certainly look a lot better in the hand than it does in the auction photos.

Note that there are quite a few minor stains around the dial periphery (particularly obvious in the region between the 9 and 10 indices), but at least it’s a legitimate dial (for once!).

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Grand Seiko 6156-8000

When it comes to the “Specials”, the reference most people are interested in adding to their collections is the 6156-8010, due to its faceted sapphire crystal and hardened stainless steel case.

That tends to mean examples of this reference - the 6156-8000 - often fly under the radar unloved. But never lose sight of the fact that these Specials are basically VFA-lights. When new, they were specced to +/-3 seconds per day, and in the hands of a competent watchmaker can be brought back to that level of precision today.

The other benefit of the 6156 movement is of course that it has a dual-language day wheel that can be set to either Japanese or English, and said day-wheel can be quickset.

Coming from the seller who only ever shows 4 photos, there is a certain degree of caution to be applied here, but the watch looks to be in great “honest” condition, and will probably be a sneaky pick-up for someone!

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Grand seiko 6186-8000 VFA

With the sales tax, the minimum bid price for this VFA works out to almost bang on $10,000 - less than a third of the price that an example of this reference sold for at Phillips latest Geneva sale.

It is interesting to see that the watch was serviced last month by Grand Seiko Japan, and yet the stated accuracy is only +10 seconds per day. Frankly that’s a pretty poor job, and makes me wonder just how seriously Grand Seiko are taking the servicing of their vintage pieces (I have an example of the first Grand Seiko with them now, and am very intrigued to see what the performance of that is like when it comes back!).

I would be quite surprised if someone doesn’t pick this up, but I’m a little concerned regarding how the case looks in one of the photos -

Honestly I’m not entirely sure what is going on there. It could well be over-zealous processing, odd lighting, smudges on the case, texture of the light modifier being reflected back into the case, or something more concerning.

Personally, it’s enough to make me err on the side of caution and walk away from it, but that’s just me. If you are thinking of taking a punt at it, I’d recommend asking the seller for another photo to try to get to the bottom of what is causing that textured look.

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

A couple of additional listings this week for you. First up…

Seiko 6215-7000

I should stress up-front that I am by no means an expert when it comes to Seiko dive watches, so I couldn’t - for example - provide any insight into whether or not this example of a 6215-7000 has been relumed, but despite them not being an area of expertise, I absolutely love this reference, and it’s not often that one comes up on an open auction with bidding starting at 1 yen.

A few years back I acquired a pre-production example of the 6215-7000 that was manufactured for testing by the Japanese Marine Self Defense Force underwater bomb disposal team. In researching the reference at the time, I documented around 60 examples from regular production that were manufactured from March to July 1967 (my watch is from December 1966).

Interestingly, the watch in this listing dates from August 1967, making it the latest example of a 6215-7000 that I’ve ever come across.

Save for a few scrapes on the bezel insert, the watch looks to be in excellent condition, but again I emphasise - on this one you need to do your own due diligence on the “honesty” of the watch.

It is a mystery as to why Seiko these days seem to have all but wiped the 6215-7000 from their history. They never mention it in any marketing material for the modern dive watches (instead focusing on the hi-beat 6159-7000), despite the fact that it was the watch that was worn on the first ever dive in Antarctic waters, on the JARE 9 expedition.

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Credor “Locomotive”

As far as I am aware, the Credor 5932-5020 is the only acknowledged Genta designed Seiko, although there are many, many other references that show huge Genta influence in their design, and it is known that Genta designed more than just this for Seiko.

And there’s a second one on the go at the moment as well -

For some reason, these always seem to turn up in slightly “banged up” condition, and these examples are typical of what you might expect to find.

What isn’t typical is that like the 6215 above, both listings started at 1 Yen. Given a dealer in Japan is currently asking in excess of 1M yen for one of these (interest in the reference has certainly increased with the recent Gentamania), it will be interesting to see what they close for.

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Noah Vosen

Grand Seiko 5646-7010

Regular readers will recognise these now. Despite the seller’s claim, this is not a Wako limited edition, but a watch with a 3rd party faceted crystal. As usual there are plenty of irrelevant tags and bags included, but at least the box is correct, as is the buckle (although impossible to state whether it is original or a modern reproduction).

He does very well with these - bidding is up to 234,000 Yen already, with more than 2 days still to go. The watch - crystal aside - is admittedly in superb condition. If it wasn’t for the crystal, it would be in the good guy’s section!

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Grand Seiko 5722-9990

And looks who’s back after a two week vacation!

This is a pretty good redial that will fool almost everyone. I won’t point out the tells, but they are there if you look really carefully. Here’s a genuine one -

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Grand seiko 43999 AD dial

Here’s an example of a listing that shows you need to keep your wits about you even when purchasing from one of the more trusted sellers.

I don’t think there is any deliberate attempt to misrepresent anything here, but there are a couple of issues that need pointing out.

Firstly, the case serial number indicates production in August 1963 - the very first month of production for the 43999 - but the dial is the later AD variant, that we typically only see on watches starting in January 1964. Yes - it is entirely possible that the case hung around in the factory for a few months prior to having a movement and dial installed, but if you’re after a 43999 of either the AD or SD dial types, you really do want to ensure that the dial is “correct” for the case production month.

The second issue is that the crown is wrong, and is from a King Seiko (the stamping on the correct GS crown is concave, not convex).

Having pointed those issues out however, it is clear that the watch is in really good shape. Whether or not the issues are enough to put you off is entirely a personal decision of course.

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Grand Seiko 4420-9000 early dial

If you’ve been paying attention in the past, you’ll know how to instantly spot that this is a redial (not that you should even need to take a look, given the source!).

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The first Grand Seiko in stainless steel

It seems this seller has given up concocting stories about how he came across this many years ago, and is now is simply listing it with a minimum starting bid that may well attract someone. Best avoided, although I have to be honest, it is a really attractive watch aesthetically!

This is the third relisting of this watch this week - he lists it on a two day auction, and then when it doesn’t sell, relists it with reduced prices. Someone will bite eventually!

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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 there are many listed this week, so be careful!

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