Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Seiko SUS 7T32 - "Big Red"!

(Note that all images expand to full-size if you click on them)
Recently bought from a fellow Seiko enthusiast in Germany, this is an almost mint-condition watch that was made for the Japanese domestic market (JDM) and which originally sold - in 1998 - for over Y30,000. That's around AUS$400 at today's rate of exchange.

Although I've referred to it as "Big Red", the overall diameter is under what I consider to be the maximum for my wrist - that is, anything larger than 40mm.
This SUS has a dial of 28mm in diameter and is 38mm across the widest part, including the crown.
So it sits on my wrist very comfortably.

Case, bracelet, crown and pushers are all satin stainless steel and the bracelet, which is signed, is of the type fitted with a security clasp that has to be lifted before releasing the catch.

The dial is a beautiful cherry-red and is enhanced by the silver hour batons and the white hands - the hour and minute of which have a luminescence embedded down the centreline.
Date window is at the 4:30 position.
The movement for this watch is the well tried and proven Seiko 7T32 quartz calibre and it keeps perfect time.


All the registers are printed in white characters and there are four sub-dials, also printed in white.
These are for 30-minute timer (at the 12 o'clock position); parallel time, alarm and for stop-watch timing beyond 30 minutes (at the 6 o'clock position); seconds (at the 9 o'clock position) and somewhat of a rarity, a telemeter dial in the central position which is read using the stop-watch sweep second hand.

This register can be used to determine the distance that a thunderstorm, for example, might be from the wearer: click the stopwatch when you see the lightning flash, stop it when you hear the thunder and then read off the kilometres on the telemeter.
Very useful for golfers who want to finish a hole before being hit by lightning!

A very attractive watch and so very easy for my eyes to quickly read the time, with the clear white hands against that lovely red background.

UPDATE
I have discovered that the alarm (the small dial at the 6 position) has an alternate use.....not one officially mentioned:-

When in the "setting the small hands to the current time" mode (crown 2 in the first out position), instead of actually aligning those hands with the main hands they are set to whatever time one wishes to monitor anywhere in the world, then that little dial becomes a second time-keeper and gives the watch dual-time capability.

It does mean that the alarm use is nullified - unless you wish to be "alarmed" at some odd hour - but, in my particular case, it allows me to have that little dial show the current time in Vancouver, Canada, where my son is located.
So this watch really has one more function than those originally stated by Seiko.