You're that secret agent! That English secret agent! From England!
Instagram
Sadly I have to report that my “thegrandseikoguy” Instagram account is no more.
For some reasons known only to the algorithm, I have been accused of not following Instagram guidelines for posting, and apart from hitting a single “Appeal” button, there is nothing I can do, and nobody I can contact.
It’s been gone for two weeks now, and I don’t think it will be coming back.
Instagram is of course a very important channel for anyone looking to share knowledge of watches and to offer watches for sale, and I’m not entirely sure at the moment what impact my losing the account will have.
Certainly it is one less avenue to promote this Substack, which has been growing nicely over the last year. I will now be more reliant than ever on “word of mouth” to grow my subscriber base.
As such, and partly as a Christmas gift to you all, I’m sending this week’s Friday newsletter out to everyone, not just the paid subscribers, and I would encourage you to forward on this email to any of your watch collecting friends who you think may enjoy the content.
Thank you!
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.
James Bond
Grand Seiko 5646-7020
There are several vintage Grand Seikos with faceted crystals, but the 5646-7020 has by far the most depth to its facets of all of them. Unfortunately that leads to many of them (and they’re that common to start off with) ending up with scratched and chipped crystals.
I suspect this one may well look a lot better in the hand than it does in the photos. It’s been shot with very hard lighting that highlights every tiny scratch on the case, but crucially the crystal appears to have survived unscathed (it could of course be a service part - they do pop up from time to time).
The case, whilst showing the signs of age as mentioned, does retain its sharp lines and - importantly - the bevels at the end of the hooded lugs.
It’s hard to tell from the photos provided whether the marks clearly visible are on the dial or not, so perhaps proceed with caution on that front.
However, even if those are minor dial marks, this is always a popular reference, and I expect quite a few will be chasing it.
Grand Seiko 4520-8010
Here’s a great example of “the poor man’s Astronomical Observatory Chronometer”. Well, poor in the relative sense of course (you could probably pick up ten of these for the same price as the AOC, but it will still set you back a few thousand).
As regular readers will recall, this is a firm favourite of mine, and I think they remain incredible value.
There is just one slight concern on this one - that line crossing the 12 o’clock index. I think it’s actually a shadow from a crystal scratch, but it’s very hard to tell from the photos provided - if you are bidding on this I’d definitely recommend asking the seller the question through your proxy service.
The caselines down the flat polished flanks look to remain pretty sharp, and importantly this comes with its original 18K buckle (which as we will see in a moment has quite a bit of value itself). As discussed in the second part of my write-up of the vintage Grand Seiko buckles, two different buckles are shown in the official photographs of this watch over its lifespan, the one seen here being the earlier one.
This one doesn’t close until boxing day, and quite a bit of interest has been shown already - we will see what it hammers for after the festive weekend.
18K Grand Seiko buckle
Because over the years many original 18K buckles have somehow become separated from their original watch, there is always considerable demand for them when they become available.
At first glance this would appear to be the same as that pictured in the previously featured listing, but if you compare them very carefully, does it not look as though the positioning of the engraved GS is not exactly the same? Here’s the one from the listing for the 4520-8010 -
It would seem that there is more nuance to these buckles than I described in my article, because the bottom of the text would appear to be much closer to the flat part of the buckle that accepts the pin.
Perhaps the size of the two is slightly different - a production difference over time of the same buckle, or these are actually two different buckles for two different references?
More research needed here clearly, although right now I certainly feel that this would be OK for a 452x-8010.
Grand Seiko 6186-8000 blue dial
This one should do well - it’s been a while since a good example of the blue dialed 6186-8000 has turned up (the last one sold back in July for just shy of 1M yen).
The only real downside here is the scratching on the crystal - checking the parallax in different images it does look as though all those marks are on the (original) crystal and the dial is clean, but do check very carefully for yourself if you are going to be bidding on this.
Frustratingly the images are very highly exposed, which makes assessing the case a bit of a challenge, but from what is visible, there don’t appear to be any major issues to highlight. Do be aware though that over-exposing the case can hide a multitude of sins.
The first Grand Seiko in platinum
Oohlala.
Listed earlier this week on Rakuten is this example of the almost mythical platinum cased first Grand Seiko.
Whilst it is extremely rare for one of these to turn up, with this one being priced at a not inconsiderable 8,250,000 Yen, I suspect it might hang around for a while.
Whilst the case looks to be in great condition, I’m a little concerned about the dial - There are quite a few stains on the dial that I suspect might be a little worse in real life than what is immediately obvious from the listing’s standard low-resolution photos.
Note however that you can right-click and open up the full resolution photos in another browser tab (just delete the “?downsize=500:*” from the end of the URL and reload).
Here we can see those dial marks are perhaps a little more conspicuous that we might originally have thought.
I know of quite a few “big name” watch collectors who are hankering after one of these as the “trophy” vintage GS piece to add to their collection. Whether or not one of them will go for this remains to be seen.
It’s not a vintage Grand Seiko but I like it
Seiko Grand Quartz 9980-7010
It is quite remarkable that in just the last few weeks all three of the 9980 Grand Quartz in this case/bracelet combination have turned up in listings. Saving the best for last it would seem as this week’s pick is the very rare tiger-eye dial variant.
Being made from a slither of a natural stone of course means that every single one of these will be totally unique, and I think it’s pretty evident that here a very deliberate decision was made to select this piece of stone with that wonderful s-shaped wave just offset from the center of the dial.
The watch is described as “dead stock” and is indeed in absolutely wonderful condition - and running. I think it is going to do very, very well indeed.
Here’s an overview of all three of these - whether, when properly lit, the tiger eye stone will come to life quite as much as my example is impossible to say, but I don’t expect that whoever wins this will be disappointed when it arrives.
Seiko Grand Quartz 4843-8110
Ok a bonus extra in this section this week, and it’s another Seiko Grand Quartz.
This time the earlier single quartz day-date caliber 4843, but just look at the condition of this one. Whilst I’m not convinced that’s the original box, I’m pretty convinced that is the original strap. Here’s the catalogue shot of the earlier 4843-8041 (on sale for a short while before being replaced by the upgraded -8110 movement).
Whilst I can assure you that you won’t want to wear this on the provided strap (check the later listing photo showing the underside), it’s always nice to have it.
The market seems to be waking up a bit to these Seiko Grand Quartz of late, so it will be very interesting to see what a superb example such as the one here closes for.
Francisco Scaramanga
The first Grand Seiko with black dial
“I bought it because it's all original. I don't think the first black dial was on sale at the time. It seems to be a very rare solid item as it is a bespoke product of a certain company.”
Well it’s not “all original” then, is it?
Whether or not one finds this aesthetically pleasing is of course a personal matter, but if you were thinking of bidding on this one, do note that the auction is not set to automatically extend.
The usual selection of fakes from the usual guy
5722-9990
6146-8000
5722-9991
Grand Seiko 4522-7000
Including this one just incase anyone reads the description and takes the seller at his word that this is in “mint condition”, because clearly it is not - the case has been absolutely ruined with a very heavy polish.
Redone coloured dial summary
My now regular sign-off 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.
Ok that’s it for this week - I do hope all of you celebrating have a wonderful Christmas weekend.
Older post but fresh question - did you ever collect a series of GS buckle designs? You mention one of the gold ones here, but is seems that a resource on epoch-correct designs for the steel buckles is not available. If there is - and if *you* published it earlier - I'll apologize for the disruption. Thanks!
The Instagram scenario is a proper eye roller. Gerald’s years of market intel’ and forensic insights into fakery and historical correctness is expertise worth paying for - and I suspect that the egos at the likes of auction houses and digital media/advertising sites have decided to raise complaints to silence a voice which was correcting them when the came up short. The smart move would have been to embrace such a rare and valuable resource.