Thursday, May 27, 2010

Feiko

Last weekend Rob Minuteman stopped by our local weekly flea market for a browse. This flea market features tables selling everything from tube socks to pet rocks to wall clocks. Maybe six or seven of the tables are dedicated to selling watches, all kinds of watches. There are the dubious assortment of Gee-Shoks, Tag Hoyers, Sitizens, Ohmayguhs and Roleks. You know somethings up when you can buy two G-Shoks for $8. Anyway, one table had a display of Seiko 5 watches selling for $40 apiece. To the naked eye the watches looked right and the price was excellent. And here was a fifteen or twenty year old Seiko with the legendary 7009 movement in perfect condition. Ahhh, buy them all before someone else does.

What a brilliant use of psychology in marketing. Price the item low enough to make it irresistible yet not low enough to raise suspicion and, bingo, another Feiko finds a customer.

The Feiko seems well made and solid but close examination reveals the differences between it and the real thing. Click on the images to enlarge them and you'll see that the printing of the hour and minute markers are fuzzy. The words "Automatic" and "21 Jewels" are also fuzzy. And, correct me if I'm wrong but, didn't the 7009 movement have 17 jewels. The metallic SEIKO located at 12:00 looks sloppy. The "5" underneath the word Seiko looks more like an S than a 5. At 6:00 the text "Made in Japan 7009-0464 R2" are partially hidden under the inner bezel. The crystal above the 6:00 is etched with a fake Seiko 5 logo.

The back of the case is another dead giveaway. The stamping of the serial number and all other text are crude and indistinct. The sixes look like eights and the depth of the stamp is uneven. A real Seiko's caseback text is crisp and highly legible. The serial number also indicates that the watch was made in October of 1987 or 1977. Besides the fact that the O in the serial number looks exactly like the zero, how can a classic watch that is a least twenty three years old look brand new and cost only $40?

And now the movement. A real Seiko movement will be engraved with such text as "Seiko", the quantity of jewels and the caliber of movement. This movement has none of the above. In fact, this movement has nothing, absolutely nothing engraved in it.

Overall the watch feels solid and actually runs well but the devil is in the details and the details are lacking. Seiko would never in a million years allow something like this to roll off it's assembly line. Unfortunately, Seiko's reputation could suffer if anyone looks at this watch and determines that Seiko's quality is second rate. Damn you, Chinese knockoffs, damn you all to hell. Ooh look, a Pathetic Philippe.