The People's Democratic Republic of Spackmanistan: The search is over

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

The search is over

Several months ago I decided I wanted to buy an older Seiko diver. I initially looked at buying an early 70s 6105 model for a while. These watches have a great history having been used extensively by GIs in Vietnam (and Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now). I liked the square hour markers, but these models are just too expensive at the moment (around $1000 for a decent original). Nor am I a fan of the cushion case that extends the watch out to around 43mm, which is getting too big for my wrist.

The horror... the horror

I then started looking at the generation after the 6105 - the 6309. The 6309 ('76 - '88) was made in two variants. The 6309-7040 ('76 - '84) and the 6309-7290 ('84 - '88). The 7040 introduced the now classic circle hour markers, as well as keeping the old cushion case design from the 6105.

However in '84, Seiko remodelled the case and made a 'slim' version - the 7290. It moved away from the cushion case and brought back the square hour markers of the 6105. They were allegedly slightly rarer than the 7040 model, but were still fairly cheap. This was the watch for me.

Except, not straight away. After six months of almost daily searching on ebay and various watch forums I learnt that there are thousands of 7290s out there, and they all have aftermarket parts on them. A lot of these 'Frankenstein' watches - made up from bits and pieces of other watches - are low quality and don't have that sharp 'Seiko look'. The easiest way to tell if they were replacements was to look at the 12 o'clock triangles on the dial, and the number 10 on the bezel. Aftermarket dials will have a much 'stubbier' triangle on the dial. And the '10' on the bezel will have a serif on the 1 instead of just a single straight line. Once you learnt to spot these, they were everywhere. Some of these Frankensteins are being sold for over $250.