You slept well?

A little restless, but I got off eventually

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).

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, and this week we kick off with an absolute cracker (as long as you don’t have big wrists!).

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James Bond

Grand Seiko 5646-7005 on bracelet

First things first - it is important to note that this does not appear to be the original bracelet for this reference.

To the best of my knowledge, just a single example of the 5646-7005 on its 18K bracelet has turned up in the last decade - an example that passed through my hands and is now in a collection in Singapore.

The bracelet shown here is very similar indeed to the genuine one, which you can see pictured below -

The seller is upfront about this, stating clearly in the description that the bracelet is not the original one, although it has to be said that based on the provided photos, the fit to the case would appear to actually be better than the genuine article!

Note also that the seller is upfront about the case having been polished, but it has been done very, very well indeed. Frankly if it hadn’t been mentioned, I doubt anyone would have noticed.

If you’re prepared to accept the non-original bracelet, then it’s a very attractive proposition indeed, although note that the bracelet is sized for a 16cm wrist.

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The first Grand Seiko - raised logo dial

Dating from January 1963, this is a pretty nice example of the first Grand Seiko with the raised logo dial. Certainly not the best that will turn up this year (nor indeed this week), but with these you get what you pay for, and the dial aging that you see here should keep the price down - and don’t forget you’ll need a replacement crystal.

Everything is “correct” for an example from early 1963, except for the crown which - as is so often the case with these - I don’t believe to be original.

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The first Grand Seiko - raised logo dial

Hailing from a few months earlier - August 1962 - is another “First”, which based on the photos would appear to be in much better condition than the one above. However, when exposed this high, it is possible that some dial deterioration has been lost in the processing, so there is an element of risk there.

The obvious issue here of course is the complete lack of a crown, but aftermarket ones do turn up quite regularly, so if you’re prepared to take on - or give your watchmaker - a project, you could do well here.

The auction has a buy-out of 326,700 Yen, which I suspect will not be taken advantage of.

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The first Grand Seiko - raised logo dial

In contrast to the above two listings, here we see a very well photographed and presented watch. It is quite possible that - missing crown excepted - the condition of the immediately preceding featured listing is as good as what we see here, but when a watch is presented as well as this seller always does in his listings, it takes all the risk out of the remote purchase.

The only slight negatives to call out here are the quite heavily dinged lugs, and the King Seiko crown.

This one will do well.

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Grand Seiko 5645-7010

This listing features a relatively average looking silver dial 5645-7010 with box and papers.

But what’s odd, is that it is the wrong box. Clearly a 56GS does not belong in a box with Hi-Beat 36000 embroidered on the inside of the lid. Whether or not a 45GS or 61GS would belong in a box without that text is of course a separate matter, and one that I will be addressing in an upcoming newsletter (apologies for the continued delay in getting this one out - I’m awaiting despatch of a very rare box from Japan that I want to photograph to include in the article).

As I have mentioned a couple of times previously, there is a significant demand for boxes and certificates of late, and the Hi-Beat 36000 box variant is significantly rarer than the one for the 56GS series without that text.

And whilst the certificates for the 56GS are generic (they make no mention of either case or movement serial numbers), that just makes them even more attractive because you can put any certificate with any 56GS watch - which is probably why the last time just a certificate was listed, it ended up hammering for 21,500 Yen.

So, oddly, here we have a listing where the box and papers will probably contribute as much to the eventual selling price as the watch itself does!

You can ignore the other paperwork with “Seiko Hi-Alarm” on the cover, since it has absolutely nothing to do with this - nor any other vintage Grand Seiko - reference.

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Grand Seiko 5646-7011

Here we have a very crisp looking example of everyone’s favourite starter vintage Grand Seiko - the 5646-7010/1. Note that even almost half a century after the watch was manufactured (3N being the first two digits of the case serial number, indicating production in November 1973), it still retains remnants of its original blue caseback protection sticker on the medallion.

Additionally, this watch is also accompanied by its bracelet, although said bracelet is unfortunately broken. I would hope that this break would be relatively simple for a competent watchmaker or jeweler to fix at minimal cost.

Frankly though, this one is worth chasing for the condition of the watch head alone, so it will be interesting to see where it lands.

Note that - as per the description - the day/date mechanism is broken, so you will need to factor in the cost of parts and a service to get that addressed.

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Grand seiko 5646-7040

Although not the final Grand Seiko reference to be launched in the vintage era (that honour falls to the 6156-8040 ‘Special’), the 5646-7040 did come very late - making its debut in the first volume of the 1974 Seiko catalogue.

These are pretty uncommon - they appear to have only been on sale for a year - and always in high demand, not least because they are the only vintage Grand Seikos with Arabic numerals.

From a study of the ones to come to market, it would appear that this reference was only in production for two months - June and August of 1973 - with the significant majority of examples dating from June (and interestingly all of those with serial numbers commencing 368 or 369).

Opportunities to pick up one of these do not come around too often. Last year just four turned up, which is pretty much the average for each year over the last decade.

The watch looks to be in very good condition - typically the cases on these seem to hold up very well over time. The good news is that the movement’s day-date quickset mechanism is fully working according to the description.

One thing to watch out for on these is degradation around the periphery of the dial, slight signs of which are visible here, but they are slight, and I suspect well within the bounds of acceptance for most collectors. I am expecting there to be quite a battle to secure this one, with it very possibly going for the buy-out price of 290,000 Yen prior to the scheduled end of the auction.

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Bracelets

There are a few listings for bracelets this week that could easily be overlooked because they have been listed in the bracelet category, and not the Grand Seiko category. As always, do be very careful to check the bracelet length to ensure it will fit your wrist when mounted to your watch.

XAB511 for 6145/6-8050

XQB040 for 5645/6-8000

XQB011 for 564x-7010/11

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

It was a tough choice to pick something this week, with quite a few interesting references listed, but ultimately the fact that this extremely rare Citizen Exceed 4-mega isn’t running (although it is on close to its full bracelet, which means I’m actually quite tempted since the bracelet on my running example is sadly only good enough for about a 16cm wrist), and the relatively poor condition of the face of this remarkable Seiko F411-5000 , means I’m plumping for this -

Seiko 0531-0010

“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.”

- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

It is fascinating to follow the early years of the development of LCD digital watches. I’ve built up quite the collection now, encompassing watches from not just Seiko, but Citizen and Casio as well.

First appearing in volume 1 of the 1977 Seiko Catalogue, the 0531 was one of Seiko’s first digital modules to include both date and month functionality (the first I believe was the 0533, that - despite its later module reference number - actually made its catalogue debut a full year earlier).

Intriguingly, both the 0531 and 0533 share the way they depict the seconds - a set of 6 triangles in a hexagon that sequentially turn black to indicate the passing of the minute.

But what I think is most fascinating about them is that all the functionality of the watch is carried out by a “traditional” watch crown. And I don’t know about you, but this particular primitive ape-descended life form thinks that’s a pretty neat idea!

Clearly what we are looking at in this listing is a mint “dead stock” example of this reference. You won’t find one better than this.

For comparison, here’s a photo of one of my earlier 0533’s -

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Max Zorin

The first Grand Seiko with raised logo dial

Aaaand yet another one of these poorly redialed “Firsts” comes of the production line. As per my usual advice, simply ignore anything this seller lists.

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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.

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