Seiko 7A38 - by the numbers

Hi all,

I'm not knowledgeable at all regarding Seiko watches, so I have no concept of what constitutes as a good deal. I've seen a 7A38-7010 model on ebay, which I like the look of  (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/221337092231). I've read a few threads about this piece on this forum, and it's always managed to interest me, so now I've spotted one on ebay, I can't resist from taking a stab at it.

Oddly enough, I didn't even like these bloody watches until I landed on this forum, after Googling about the 7A28-7120 RAF Gen 1 watches

I just wanted to know:

1) What's a good price? i.e. Is the current £150 bid a good price?

2) Are they rare or do they pop up often?

3) Is it actually a good watch? i.e. is it worth buying?

4) Is the one on ebay in good condition, or is it worth holding out for a better example?

Any help would be appreciated.

It's not a bad price - but it's fitted with a completely wrong (black chrome plated) replacement bracelet. It's a pity because the watch head actually looks to be in pretty decent condition. Have a scroll through the thread (all pages) in this section entitled:

Yet another 7Axx on an undisclosed non-original bracelet .... I've mentioned that 7A38-7010 on Page 6.

Sorry, I didn't have time to write any more last night. What I was pointing you towards was the photos of my 7A38-7010's on the first page of that thread I linked above - examples of how the correct original silver anodized Seiko p/n Z1118S bracelet should look:

When looking for a 7A38-7010 the most important things to consider are the condition of the vulnerable bezel insert / inlay and the bracelet. The original Seiko p/n Z1118S bracelet is typical Seiko mid-80's folded link construction and prone to stretching. They'e almost impossible to find and the p/n B1424S and B1688S bracelets which are passable substitutes are nearly as scarce nowadays.

Here's the most recent 7A38-7010 to sell on eBay in the UK: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/390706380570

Not the best example, with plenty of graunch marks on the bezel inlay, but fitted with what appeared to be the original Z1118S bracelet.

Then there was this one, a week earlier: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/281203768540

It sold for only 67 Euros in mid-November, but if you look at the seller's original photos, you'll see it had a couple of nasty scratches. 

Just looked at that eBay auction (221337092231) and saw that someone had bumped the original bidder as high as $300 already. 

I presume that was you ?  Suggest you leave it at that. Better examples, with the correct original bracelet can be found cheaper. 

I just checked my records. O.K., it's going back a couple of years, but I paid 103 Euros for the one on the left and 180 for the other. 

That's a stunning watch indeed.

Cheers, Julio. 

@ 'Collector'. If that is you (bidder 9***o, stacking up bids like they're going out of fashion) - Go ahead, ignore my advice. 

If you're planning on buying it with a view to enhancing 'the Military Look', then a word of warning ....

This watch won't work well with a one piece NATO - the hooded lug boxes are too tight and the spring bars will be placed under strain. 

Reminded me of this aberration on eBay in September 2012: Special award for the most ridiculous non-original strap on a 7Axx

Incredibly, that abortion sold for 173 Euros (approx £145) after 20 bids  http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/290768097035

Haha thanks, Seiko7A38! But that isn't me bidding, I promise

I'm going to take your advice and hold out for a piece with all the original parts. I feel like ignoring your advice would put me in the same infuriating bracket as those amateurs' that ignore Sarah Beeny when she's giving out property development advice.

Dear lord, that 'Military Look' is sickening! MY EYES! My poor eyes!

That bidder 9***o may have been a shill, of course. This watch is currently the only item they have placed (6) bids on recently. 

Just for the record - for anyone who might come back to look at this thread later, when the eBay links have long since expired ....

This was the 7A38-7010 in question - fitted with a pretty obvious non-original black chrome bracelet:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/221337092231

The seller's revised description included the sentence:

COMES WITH AN AFTER MARKET BLACK METAL BRACELET THAT SUITS THE WATCH VERY WELL.

As I wrote in a previous post, the watch head itself did appear to be in quite nice condition from the seller's photos:

At the original opening bid price of $245 / £150 - presuming you had an original Seiko p/n Z1118S bracelet going spare, it might have made sense. But not at the price where the bidding subsequently ended 3 days later - at $367 / £225. Well not in my book anyway. 

Now it's an even less attractive price.  By a factor of almost 100%. 

Here's a straight copy and paste of my post from the other thread:

The title of this topic is something of a mis-nomer in this case:

Yet another 7Axx on an undisclosed non-original bracelet ....

Because this 7A38-7010 listed overnight by a would-be profiteering US re-seller is one and the same watch, s/n 3N1815.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/161180500460

Rare Vintage SEIKO 7A38-7010 Chronograph from 1983.

Watch is in excellent condition with minor marks.

Quartz movement is running, and keeping time.

Day/Date is English, and German.

Stainless steel bracelet will fit up to a 7.5 inch wrist, and has removable links for shortening

Buckle is marked "SEIKO SQ".

Chronograph starts, stops, and resets to zero.

Dial is flat black with glossy sub dials. White hands and markers really pop against the black background.

All button functions working.

Case is sand blasted.

Case back is screw down and still has original oval sticker.

Although the tired-looking stretched stainless bracelet this wise-A$$ would-be re-seller has fitted may look more like the original Seiko p/n Z1118S (well at least it's the right colour) - it isn't one; it's a much older p/n Z187, which has a brushed finish, not silver-anodised.

How much is the watch actually worth, in your opinion? Also, is it actually "RARE"? According to a lot of people, there's a lot of rare Seikos. I'm starting to think they only made 10 of each model

I thought I'd already made my opinion clear in a previous post ....

At the original opening bid price of $245 / £150 - presuming you had an original Seiko p/n Z1118S bracelet going spare, it might have made sense.

In terms of Seiko 7Axx rarity factor, the 7A38-7010 SAA001J is comparatively scarce: maybe a dozen or two eBay sightings per year - but they're much more commonly found than their 7A38-701A and 7A38-701B 'Vulcan' siblings. Think more like 10,000 produced. 

As an example of what I'd consider sensible pricing, here's another recently ended auction on eBay Germany from last month:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/251371446606

Sold for 147.50 Euros after 8 bids. Not the best of photos, but appeared to be in good condition, with the original p/n Z1118S bracelet:

Well, we may have not had a model specific topic for the 7A38-7010 before, but this thread is rapidly turning into the makings of one.

Just in case anybody fails to recognise the photo this cheeky b*st*rd German eBay seller has used (twice) in their new listing:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/181287236598

Seltene Vintage Military Style SEIKO 7A38-7010

Quartz Chronograph Tachymeter Schwarz

.... scroll back up the page - it's MINE !! 

No - it isn't for sale. Reassuring to know that the German seller SCAM ARTIST thinks it's worth double what I paid for it though. 

By the way, before anybody contemplates making them an offer, I seriously urge you to check this seller's negative feedback:

http://feedback.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=ammoreta&ftab=FeedbackAsSeller

A clue that this fraudulent German seller may not actually have any such watch (let alone mine) in their possession is to be found in their own description: Tag / Datum ist Englisch (Day / Date is English). Like the majority (but not all) 7A38-7010's I've seen and owned, mine has an English / German day wheel.

Caveat Emptor - As Always, Gentlemen. 

haha nice photography

Jesus, this model seems to be fetching quite a premium at the moment!

Seems that German eBay seller (allegedly a Ukranian female - Nadiia Kompanets) does have a 7A38-7010 of their own for sale. 

A day or so later @ 11:31 Christmas Day morning, they embedded 3 images in their listing description (by revising it a third time):

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemRevisionDetails&item=181287236598

Oddly they've chosen not to use this one, preferring instead to keep the 'borrowed' photo of my watch as the primary image ! 

Surprising what an assertively worded email can achieve - in less than an hour. 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemRevisionDetails&item=181287236598

You'll note that the German eBay seller has now replaced the primary listing image (my photo) with an actual photo of their own watch:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/181287236598

The first embedded image in the description is a different photo again, taken from another angle:

Doesn't look quite as good as mine, does it ? 

While we're on the subject of the 7A38-7010 and prices, I've been wracking my memory and ploughing back through eBay history to find the highest price a decent pukka example had sold for - in a no reserve auction, as opposed to a speculative Buy-it-Now price.

I think I may have found it. This one was listed on eBay Germany - the best place to find 7A38-7010's, back in September 2012:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/180970575798

Chronograph Seiko 7A38 7010 Tri-Compax 90er - Top aus Sammlung!

Chronograph Seiko 7A38 7010 Tri-Compax 90er - Top aus Sammlung! 

Legendäres Design der 90er Jahre 

Gehäuse Edelstahl - extrem guter Zustand ´für das Alter, siehe Bilder 

Werk mit 1/10 Sekunden Messung 

Kommt mit Originalband in Maximallänge!! 

Uhr läuft tadellos!

It sold for 263 Euros (approx. £219) after 29 bids (ending in a 3-way sniper shoot-out): http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/180970575798

That selling price narrowly pipped another listing on eBay Germany the previous month - August 2012:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/330778437825

Seiko 7A38 Quartz Chronograph "RAR!!!

Sammler auflösung: Selten RAR!!!

Seiko Chronograph mit integriertem Seiko-Armband. Die Uhr läuft einwandfrei. Gut erhalten. 

Privatverkauf, Keine Rücknahme, Keine Garantie ! Fragen werden schnell beantwortet !

Versand ins Ausland und andere Versandart auf Anfrage !

That 7A38-7010 sold for 255.50 Euros (approx. £213) after 27 bids - ending in a real snipe-fest !!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/330778437825

Would-be profiteering US eBay re-seller ninjawatch's 30 day listing for his 7A38-7010 (see my post of December 22) has just ended.

Needless to say, with a ridiculous Buy-it-Now price of $800 (compared to the $366 he over paid for it himself less than a week earlier) and despite the listing having 28 watchers at one point, it remained unsold:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/161180500460

Ninjawatch received a total of 4 offers; three on the first day from the same person: the highest of which $500, he'd have done well to accept. Instead, in a typically speculative greedy manner that's becoming all too familiar nowadays, he held out for more - in vain. 

http://offer.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBidsLogin&item=161180500460

To my amusement, the other offer he received on January 1st was for $250 - $5 more than the price I reckoned the watch was worth !

I'm sure that if I searched eBay I could come up with a knackered old 20mm Seiko SQ bracelet that looked the part for $5 in no time. 

Well, we may have not had a model specific topic for the 7A38-7010 before, but this thread is rapidly turning into the makings of one.

This topic, previously titled: 7A38-7010 - is this a good price? started by by 'Collector' in the eBay section will now become our 7A38-xxxx model specific topic. Not sure quite what he was referring to by 'I've read a few threads about this piece on this forum', but there certainly wasn't a dedicated one before.

If there had been, I would have started it with this set of photos of Hung Pham's superb example (used with his kind permission):

Those images came from his old Cox.net photo gallery, which has sadly long since disappeared into the ether.

Here's another larger photo Hung posted on the old Network54 SCWF, presumably of the same 7A38-7010:

I right-clicked and saved those photos early in 2009, though I suspect Hung Pham's Cox.net photo gallery had existed as an invaluable point of reference for collectors and enthusiasts alike, for some time prior to that. But oddly enough, when I sorted my 7A38-7010 photo sub-folder into (oldest) date order, to help me find them easier, those weren't quite the very first images I had saved to it.

It was this photo of a bracelet (or possibly 2) which appeared on eBay in January 2009, almost 5 years ago to the day:

It is of course, the correct Seiko p/n Z118S bracelet as used on the 7A38-701A, 7A38-701B and 7A38-7010.

I wish I could find the original eBay listing again, because the description was wonderfully cryptic. It went something like:

If you know what these bracelets are for, then you'll grab them up (or something suchlike). At the time I didn't know - so I didn't. 

I've seen a couple more used / broken ones on eBay since, but never managed to buy one myself, let alone a NOS example.

Thinking about what I might write here later on, I did a quick bit of searching on eBay this morning. Look what I came up with ! 

Close but no cigar, I'm afraid.  

The photo is a little deceptive. It's not actually a p/n Z1118S bracelet, but a p/n M1008S as used on the A714-5050 'Running Man'.

It's still a lot closer in appearance to the original bracelet than the Z187 fitted by Ninjawatch. $5 gets you the eBay item number. 

German eBay seller Ammoreta's 30-day listing for her 7A38-7010 by  was due to end some time today, although I can't now remember exactly what time. I just looked at the ended listing and someone appears to have made her a last minute offer, which she accepted.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/181287236598

According to Goofbid's eBay Best Offer tool http://www.goofbid.com/ebay_best_offers_tool.html?gbo_username=ammoreta

that offer would appear to have been for 300 Euros against her 390 Euros Buy-it-Now price, so she did very well to accept it.