A gorgeous new oldie
In my continuing watch something-or-other, I fished this lovely item out of Ebay with the proceeds from my WatchReport posting last month:
Vintage Seiko, 5606-7000, ‘LordMatic’. Automatic, center seconds, day/date, quickset, hacking, 23 jewels, 21600vph. (Low to medium beat). This one has a gold-plate case, which is why I got it for $51; the steel-cased watches are more popular.
I can’t tell if it’s a front-loading movement or not, the caseback is Kanji:
Update 8/18/08: A Japanese-speaking relative was kind enough to translate for me:
I think this watch was given to someone who worked for Japan National Railroad.
The top part is “Commemoration of Meritorious Service Award”
The bottom is “President of Japan National Railroad”
There’s a lot to like about this watch. I really like the aesthetics of the face, with gold baton markers on a subtle sunburst-patterned silver dial. The hands are aged just a tiny bit, and only one tiny dial spot below the date. The crystal is a replacement, which is good for me.
The looks are a lot like classic Grand Seiko, but for a teeny tiny fraction of the price. I’m going to look into the case, and see if its possible to remove the gold plate; not sure what the base metal below is. Electoplating is possible, but I don’t have access to do so.
As with most 5606 movements, the issue is that the quickset day/date pieces have failed, despite claims to the contrary in the auction listing. Sigh. That exceeds my skills, so I’ll have to send it off to Randall Benson or similar. Rats!
Update 7/24/08: The seller has quite kindly offered to fix the quickset, so I will mail it back to him and revert to anticipation.
Update 9/08: Returned fixed! Many thanks to Jose for being a man of his word.
The movement is otherwise quite remarkable, well finished and very well designed:
It wears beautifully, amazingly thin and elegant. The silver dial glows in the light, and the dauphine hands are very easy to read. Now if I could just set the day/date right… Soon!
More information:
- The Ebay auction where I got this one
- In-depth on the 5606 movement, by Randall Benson
- More on the cases and movement, Reto Castellazzi
- Seiko abbreviations, this is where I deciphered ‘SGP stainless’
- Seiko production date calculator - mine is 1968 or later, since serial missing!
July 23rd, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Very nice catch Ron. Jose (watchcooking) has sold a few of this watch model before - I actually like the gold color on this specific model more than the stainless. You’re right about most of the gold color cased vintage being cheaper than their SS equivalents though, I see that too.
It’s a nice movement, hacking and handwinding is a combo you don’t see in most of their later movements. Oh yes, the few 5606-7000s I’ve seen have all been front-opening, but all of them have been labeled as such on the back. I’ve seen three on the web (none in person) this year with the Kanji engraving like yours, and each of them has been listed as a commemorative watch for the Japanese National Railway president. The last one by coincidence was just sold on Yahoo Japan 2 days ago for $80, looks just like yours but a slight bit more worn case.
By the way, I had this same sort of problem as you have happen once on a Bellmatic I purchased from Jose, he was very good about fixing it as it didn’t match the auction listing, you may just want to contact him and see if you can send it back and he can fix it for you and return. May save you a few bucks.
Thanks for sharing!
Cheers,
Harry
http://www.harrybishop.ca
July 23rd, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Although why I said Ron instead of Paul I’ll have to put down to a mental blip, sorry about that!