A very reluctant sale. I need to get access to some quick cash.

This is an excellent example of one of the nicest Seiko 7A two-tone (dual-tone / bicolour) references. Just in general one of the nicest looking Seiko two-tone watches ever made in my opinion, vintage or modern.

Movement is running great. Day/date sets and changes at night perfectly. Keeping excellent time. The chronograph function is running smoothly too. The sub dial hands hit each marker perfectly. They reset & align to 0 bang on as well. The central chronograph hand hits each second marker very closely. All the pushers have a positive & tactile action to them. They have a lovely feedback to them when pressed. They engage the chronograph function without any problems and reset perfectly too. The gold plating is largely intact on all of the pushers including the crown.

The gold plating is largely intact on the bezel, crown, pushers and bracelet. It’s very difficult to find an excellent example of this reference where the gold hasn’t been rubbed away too much. After all, this is nearly 40 years old. This is from 1988, so one of the last ones produced from the Seiko factory before being discontinued in 1989.

The dial is lovely. It’s hard to show it off properly but it’s got a fine vertically brushed dial. The dial is a light grey almost silver colour with the indices being gold plated (with a thin black line in the central part). The applied Seiko logo is also gold plated. The hands are largely blacked out. The 3 sub dials have been deeply cut into the dial. The outer track of each sub dial has a different finish to the rest of the dial (smooth rather than brushed). There’s just enough contrast between the black hands and gold applied indices against the grey-ish dial to make it look very elegant and not overdone with too much gold. It’s very classy looking. The whole watch gives you OysterQuartz vibes, but in chronograph form (and way cheaper). To my eyes, the dial looks perfect with no patina present.

The bracelet is of a jubilee type. It’s very comfortable. It will fit a wrist of up to 7.5” maximum, but I have one spare link that should allow you to fit it onto a 7.75”wrist, maybe 8”.

I don’t think you’ll find a nicer example of this reference for quite some time. It’s still 40 years old though, so don’t expect perfection. This isn’t NOS. It shows signs of use as it’s not been stored in a box all that time. It’s been used frequently over the past decades, but even so the condition is very good considering its age. I can only assume that the crystal has been replaced with a genuine original crystal at some point because the crystal is flawless with no fine scratches present allowing you to fully enjoy that dial. The crystal sits absolutely flat with the bezel.

I don’t know the service history. I was thinking about getting it done soon, but I need the money to pay off some urgent bills unfortunately. I really would like to keep this, but I don’t have much choice at the moment. As it sits though, it’s running perfectly and that’s testament to this amazing movement from the Seiko 7A family. I’ve owned this for about 6 months so far and not had a single issue with it.

For me, this perfectly encapsulates the 1980’s with a Seiko quartz based chronograph housed inside an integrated bracelet tonneau shaped watch in two-tone. If you’re looking at this watch, you already know how good the 7A28 & 7A38 movement is. Arguably the best quartz analog chronograph ever made. Some people will say, “I can buy a brand new chronograph from Seiko today for £400-500+”. True, but it’s not comparable to these old 80’s quartz movements from Seiko. I’d much rather spend £500 or more on a 7A28/38 Seiko quartz than one of Seiko’s modern quartz chronographs (solar or not). If Seiko sold these same watches on today’s market, Seiko would be charging at least £1,000 for them. Grab a piece of vintage quartz history today!