"SeiyaJapan Original Watch Automatic Prototype."
Hi, this is Alan. Thanks for reading. My contact info is at the bottom.
Here is a pretty special watch. it is the "SeiyaJapan Original Watch Automatic Prototype" designed and created by Mr Seiya Kobayashi of SeiyaJapan. The watch came out in 2020, and has a military style.
More on this later, but I have known Seiya-san for 20 years, and it is both a pleasure and an honor to own and wear this beautiful watch that he himself has created.
Some details:
38 mm steel case*
Screw-down crown
Sapphire crystal
Miyota 9105 24-jewel automatic movement
Display back
10 ATM water resistant
Luminous hands and dial
*Special stainless steel: 316L, a "marine-grade" chromium-nickel-molybdenum stainless steel developed to provide improved corrosion resistance compared with more conventional stainless steels.
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Watch came in a nice box, with a couple of strap options, and a screwdriver for changing out the lug bars.
Here's a good look at a part of the dial. Background dial is matte black, and dial markings are bright white. Numerals are bold, easy to read. Outer double-track at the edge, and luminous dots. (The hour numerals are also luminous. SEIYAJAPAN B is in very small lettering at the bottom.
Nice luminous material on hands and dial.
Good size screw-down crown. Notice the screws at the lugs. Instead of spring bars, the bars screw into place. Below is a picture of the bars, one with the screw removed from the barrel.
Display back. The movement is premium, a Miyota 24-jewel automatic, caliber 9015, having 28,800 vph, a power reserve of 42 hours, and accuracy between -10 and +30 seconds per day.
Buckle of the NATO-style strap has the S logo.
Turning it over shows the display back and movement. The caseback is thick and has slots for the case wrench. Notice the bars have the appearance of the fixed bars you'll see in some proper vintage military watches. This not only has the look, but should also provide close to the strength of those bars.
Another look at the front of this watch. Matt black dial, bright white hands and dial markings. Has some classic military features and styling. The short and slightly wider hour hand to make quick distinction from the longer and narrower minute hand, for example. You will see this on some of the vintage pieces made for the Royal Air Force. The numerals, aside from the 1, are sans serifs, easy reading. The outer double-track for minutes/seconds, is, I am pretty sure, seen in some of the WWW watches (Watch, Wrist, Waterproof) issued to British service during and after WWII.
I have known Seiya Kobayashi for more than twenty years, and I've enjoyed knowing him and the friendship that has developed.
In August of 2000, I was in New York City attending a work meeting. I had been interested in watches for only a couple years or so, and had become interested in "military-style" watches (among many other styles(. There was one watch, the Seiko 4S15 "Military" SUS that had generated a lot of interest among military style watch fans. But it was kind of rare, and hard to come by.
Well, this watch showed up on Japan Yahoo Auctionis. I can't remember all the details exactly, but someone must have pointed it out to me. But it was (and pretty much still is) impossible to open a Japan Yahoo account unless you have a Japanese address. Fair enough. And also, even if I were to have an account, it would be impossible for me to figure out how to bid, as I did not understand Japanese, and auto translation of web pages was years away.
But somehow (and I don't recall exactly how) I became connected with Seiya, who lives in Tokyo. He was willing to act as a proxy, bid on this watch, and if won, receive the watch, and reship to me in the United States.
In 2000, there was no Gmail, no smartphones to speak of, and most people if they had email had POP (Post Office Protocol). (POP works by contacting your email service and downloading all of your new messages from it. Once they are downloaded onto your computer they are deleted from the email server. This means that after the email is downloaded, it can only be accessed using your own computer.) So, accessing your email when you were away was not possible. Most people didn't bring their computer on trips. But Yahoo Mail was around then, which was effectively "webmail." I had a Yahoo Mail account. I had set up my main email to forward all of my emails to this Yahoo account some months before, unrelated to watches, as I found from time to time I was somewhere where it was useful to check my email, and if i had access to a computer I was able to do so, friend's house, etc.
So, back to this watch auction. The auction was set to end toward the end of my stay there. But computer access was difficult. My hotel room had something called WebTV or TVWeb, where there was a keyboard (no mouse) and you were able to get some kind of custom (and terrible) browser on your hotel room TV and navigate the web using the keyboard. It was terrible. Lots of toggling back and forth. Sometimes your cursor appeared off screen.
Fortunately, there was a free internet kiosk not far from my hotel. The hotel was around Times Square (not my choice, please, the meeting took place there) and across from a sort of "Times Square Chamber of Commerce" was an actual kiosk, outdoors, or maybe in a kind of enclosed phone-booth type thing, where there were four proper PC computers. Anyone could just use them, no login, no ID, no sign in. They were hardly used, and I never had trouble getting one. So, from here, I was able to communicate with Seiya and everyone else, checking it once or twice a day. And it was through this form of contact that Seiya agreed to bid for me.
Well, I did not win the auction for that Seiko. My maximum bid was too low, and someone else won. In reporting this to me, I could tell that Seiya felt bad that I didn't win it. He said that he would keep an eye out for me, in case he saw this watch come up again. So helpful already. But then I think the next day there was an email saying that he actually owns this watch himself, and that he was willing to sell it to me! He sold me the watch off his own wrist! I was overjoyed, and also grateful. Amazing. And from what I remember, he sold it to me was beyond fair, and I'm sure it was below market value. And act of great kindness. And that Seiko will always be one of the most special watches in my collection.
At that time, he was working as a computer engineer. Soon after that, he founded seiyajapan.com, and for nearly twenty years he has been helping to provide Japan-only watch versions to thousands of people all over the world. From the Our Story, he says: "I've done this without high-pressure sales and marketing because I believe the watches speak for themselves. I also keep my margins low and the quality of my service high. As a watch-lover myself, I know that value, quality and service are very important to the watch-buying consumer."
I do not think you will find anyone more reputable, fair, and honorable, anywhere in the world of watches. It's a pleasure and an honor to wear a Seiya watch!
If anyone wishes to see more on these watches, see these links:
