Vintage Seiko World Time - Collectors / Owners

[dapellegrini]

300 watches cataloged now.

Assuming a production of 1m watches, the stat summaries should have a margin of error between 5-6% - so pretty usable for educated assumptions on various attributes of the total production.

Here's where we are at by model:



On the report, click the "Expand/Collapse" text to view detail attribute break-outs by model, like this:

[inboost]

dapellegrini - you're really putting on an outstanding show with this website. I hope it manages to become a standard others find interest to add to. Imagine if we had this kind of detail you've assembled on these world timers and replicated it for other high interest model watches? It could become the Global Seiko Collectors Catalog (better book the domain name now !)

Way to go!

inboost

[dapellegrini]

Well I actually had registered a legit domain for this a while ago, and finally tonight it looks like I have the SSL and other bits sorted out...  so now it is also available here:

www.seikoworldtime.com/

It might take a few more hours to propagate through the inter-webs - and work for everyone in the world.

[inboost]

Working for me as of 9:30am EDST 14-OCT-2021

[dapellegrini]

I have a goal to get to 365 watches - that would give a nice and even 5% margin of error if we are looking at a production of 1m watches...  I am getting close but it is getting harder and harder to find ones I haven't already cataloged.

In the meantime I have added little eye-ball icons to drill down on data sets, and two new summary sets to look at dial oddities that interest me:

[cobrajet25]

Well, here is one of mine I happen to have handy if it is of any use to you...

[dapellegrini]

Excellent - thank you!  That is number 371.

Lots of new things and clean-up on the Image Study...

the link: seikoworldtime.com/

• The screen has been setup more like a Blog entry.  Lots more plain text context and commentary and a splash image have been added
• There is a table of contents for easier navigation of the long document
• On the Data Explorer, there is now a thumbnails gallery view.  Select the data you want with filtering and sorting in the grid, then toggle over to the Thumbnail Gallery view - to see all of the watch images at once!
• Up until today all images were full size pulls - now smaller images have been generated where appropriate - with the full images used in drilldown and hover over detail.  That is reducing the image sizes by about 90% - so things should be quicker.

This thumbnail viewer is really cool (for me at least), so say for instance you wanted to see all of the early model sunburst black dials, with either yellowish or reddish hue 24-hour rings - you could just use this link:

seikoworldtime.com/dataview?dialColor=Black/Gray+Sunburst&correctDial=true&thumbs=true

[dapellegrini]

The more time I spend with the data, the more it seems that the 6117 generations were really the first standard issue Seiko World time, with the 6217 generations being special editions and one-off trial-and-error watches.

In the 6217 range we have the original watch, itself a special edition, then a dolphin back for one month (Dec 1964), an Asian Games version for one month (August 1966), and then a smattering of odd setups, some with lume, some without, some with a new case, some keeping the original case - produced on and off throughout 1967.  Oh, and no (as in ZERO) marketing collateral for any of these, save the first watch.  It seems to me (at this point anyways) that Seiko was in the wilderness with their World Time watches after the first watch, until 1968. Perhaps they were not sure what they might do with it (if anything).  Perhaps they struggled to sell through the initial production runs, or just didn't believe the a World Time watch had a large enough audience to merit a standard version in their product line?

Then as the 6117 is brought to market - we see a revived marketing effort, and plenty of data points from Seiko to indicate these are watches they intend to produce in large quantities and sell as part of their standard product offering.

[dapellegrini]

I'm up to 404 watches now.

I've also built out the website a bit more.  It's now got better navigation, the beginnings of a home page, and a new graphical timeline.  It should all be fairly mobile friendly - and even recognize dark mode at night (at least on apple devices).

Time permitting, I plan on adding content via a series of short, targeted articles.  I'm also awaiting the return of 3 of my watches from servicing (with Ashton) - once I have those back, I plan on adding more photos.

seikoworldtime.com/

[dapellegrini]

I'm working on building out the new website to include articles, not just the image data.

First article is live:

seikoworldtime.com/articles/6117-640X-Validation

Planning a couple dozen more over time...  

Its pretty image heavy - hopefully a good resource.

If you see any error or omissions - or have suggestions - please post them here.

[inboost]

Looks great dapellegrini! A real work of technical art there!

inboost

[dapellegrini]

Thanks - second article is up:


seikoworldtime.com/articles/Cities-Changes-Over-The-Years

That's one I've wanted to document for a while.

There are also a couple more articles up with ad/catalog scans.

Once I get my watches back from service (so I can get some more photos), I will have articles on the 6217-7000, validating the same and the 6117-6400.

[dapellegrini]

Newest article added:
Confirming originality of the 7000-series...

seikoworldtime.com/articles/6217-7000-Validation

[inboost]

dapellegrini - Again more very enjoyable data to review and thanks for putting your time into it! Now if I could only figure out a way to get you just as interested in Bellmatics    (my next quest if I don't get sidetracked by something else...)

[dapellegrini]

An interesting new discovery (for me at least).  There are actually two versions of the "Error Bezel" in the 6117-640X generation, 3 if you count the first one from the 6117-601X generation.

• The first Error Bezel (that we know was not actually an error) started appearing in April 1968 on the 6117-601X models. Had that one documented
• Then in Nov 1969 through 1970, we get the first error bezels on the new 6117-640X, which lists Dharan next to Moscow. Had this one too
• Then in 1971 through perhaps part of March 1972 we get an update, replacing Dharan with Mauritius and adding Riyadh. This one surprised me today - didn't see it until now!
• Then in 1972 we get the stacked version of GMT/London + some other changes.

I've updated this article (and the 640X validation article as well) - I don't have great pics of all the versions - but at least they are documented.

seikoworldtime.com/articles/Cities-Changes-Over-The-Years

ALSO, on this article - I have added embedded Google Maps showing the location of each reference city on a world map by bezel change, noting removals in RED and additions in GREEN. Kinda fun to see them on a map and see where cities came and went visually.

[inboost]

dapellegrini - You need to chase down Buenos Aires in your maps! My 1971 6117-6409 'Error Bezel' has that between Rio and New York on the upper ring. I use it a lot as I have to cheat the 24hr hand setting to fix up an offset in daylight saving between my location (Eastern Time) and Melbourne Australia whom I do a lot of communication with.

[dapellegrini]

Thank you!  I completely missed that one.

Updated the maps and the whole article in various places to note that change (Santiago replaced by Buenos Aires in 1968).

I've also added a rarity index at the bottom.  


seikoworldtime.com/articles/Cities-Changes-Over-The-Years#rarity

[dapellegrini]

I've also (as of today) started to tag 6117-640X's with brushed cases.  So far I think I have 31 of 225 cataloged examples tagged, which is about 14%.  Many of them have wrong hands, wrong dials, or other obvious non-original parts... but not all of them.

Here's the data set:

seikoworldtime.azurewebsites.net/dataview?brushedFinish=true&thumbs=true

I've updated the Validation article for this generation to dynamically monitor these - and just note that it is "unclear if they are original".  My gut tells me probably not, but I have to say there are more of them in the dataset than I would have guessed.  One reason could be because it is easier to brush refinish than to polish?  Another might be because its Seiko and people like to do things like this to their watches.

[dapellegrini]

Nov 6, 2021 7:10:35 GMT -8 inboost said:

dapellegrini - You need to chase down Buenos Aires in your maps! My 1971 6117-6409 'Error Bezel' has that between Rio and New York on the upper ring. I use it a lot as I have to cheat the 24hr hand setting to fix up an offset in daylight saving between my location (Eastern Time) and Melbourne Australia whom I do a lot of communication with.

Also, as of right now your 1971 Moscow-Riyadh bezel in white is the rarest of the bunch, accounting for only 1.85% of all world times from 1964-1976. 

That calculation takes the 417 currently archived watches, sorts them by Year-Month to find the highest production number, totals those up by model and date ranges - then applies the black/white dial split percentages.  Should be fairly accurate, though I guess who knows how things will look as the dataset grows.

[inboost]

Nov 6, 2021 15:22:29 GMT -8 dapellegrini said:

Also, as of right now your 1971 Moscow-Riyadh bezel in white is the rarest of the bunch, accounting for only 1.85% of all world times from 1964-1976. 

That calculation takes the 417 currently archived watches, sorts them by Year-Month to find the highest production number, totals those up by model and date ranges - then applies the black/white dial split percentages.  Should be fairly accurate, though I guess who knows how things will look as the dataset grows.

Wow, that's really cool! The funny thing is that I didn't even know it was an error bezel until I asked Fergus to spot me on the purchase. I was having concerns about it being a bit too nice and thought I might have bought a fake. His sage council was much appreciated and he was the one to begin my education on the GMT/London changes. Your web data base is a whole new level of education and really enjoyable. Somehow I missed the connection to this more rare variant of the bezel. I'll need to go back and re-read it.

Thanks again for all the great effort you've put into it dapellegrini!

Inboost