Buying a vintage Seiko in Australia: what to check before you pay
Vintage Seiko is the easiest way into collecting and the easiest place to overpay. Not because sellers are dishonest — most are not — but because the things that halve a watch's value are invisible in a good photograph and nobody volunteers them.
The dial is the whole watch
A redial — a dial repainted at some point in the last fifty years — takes perhaps sixty per cent off the value of a vintage Seiko, and a good one is hard to spot. What to look at:
- The printing. Original Seiko dial text is razor-sharp under magnification. Redials are usually slightly soft, and the letters are often marginally the wrong weight or spacing.
- The minute track. On a redial it frequently runs too close to, or over, the applied markers, because the printer worked around markers that were already fitted.
- The lume plots. Original plots sit in recesses and the surrounding paint is level. Redial lume tends to sit on top.
- “Japan” and the dial code. At the bottom of the dial there should be a code matching the movement and case. Redials often lose it, or carry one that does not match the caseback.
Ask the seller directly: is the dial original and unrestored? It is a fair question, it is not rude, and a seller who will not answer it plainly has told you something.
Polished cases
A polished case is not damage and it is not dishonest. It is, though, worth real money on references collectors care about — a King Seiko KSK or a 6105 diver with its original bevels is worth substantially more than the same watch buffed round. Look at the transition between the top of the lug and its side: on an unpolished case it is a crisp line, on a polished one it is a curve.
Service history, and what "runs well" is worth
A mechanical watch that has not been opened in thirty years is running on oil that turned to varnish twenty years ago. It may keep good time right up until it destroys a pivot. "Runs well" is a statement about today.
A service on a vintage Seiko in Australia is commonly $250 to $500 depending on the calibre and what needs replacing. Assume you are paying it unless there is a receipt, and price the watch accordingly rather than being surprised later.
The parts that get quietly swapped
- Hands. Very commonly replaced, and correct replacements are available for most references. Compare against a reference photograph of the same model.
- Bezel inserts. Almost never original on a 6309 or 6105 that has been worn. Faded ones are desirable; new reproductions are not.
- Crowns and crystals. Both consumables. A replaced crystal is fine; a replaced crown that is the wrong profile is a hint about how the rest was treated.
- Bracelets. An original Seiko bracelet in good condition can be worth several hundred dollars on its own.
What to ask for, in one message
Hello — could I ask a few things before I commit? Is the dial original and unrestored, and are the hands original? Has the case been polished? When was it last serviced, and is there a receipt? Could you send a photograph of the movement and of the caseback? Thanks.
Every reasonable seller answers this in a couple of minutes, and the answer tells you more than another ten photographs of the dial would.
Buying in person
Where you can, see the watch. On a fifty-year-old mechanical watch the things that matter most — how the crown feels, whether the rotor is noisy, whether the case has been opened badly — do not photograph. That is the argument for filtering by state on this site rather than shipping something sight unseen.
Tokyo Time is a classifieds site, not a dealer or a valuer. Nothing here is an appraisal of any particular watch.