I just grabbed one of these with a very scratchy crystal. I have wanted one since I missed a great original on Craigslist a few years ago that was nice and not too costly, but I had to try to get it for less and missed out. Now I see the vast majority for sale have new dials, hands, bezels, inner bezels/chapter rings. I think this one I got has original parts. The repro dials all seem to be marked "resist" and the orig. "proof." Does anyone have any wisdom on these to share? The repro market in Seikos is scary, as many you know. Since this may end up like more of my personal Seiko diary than a thread that others read or care about, I wanted to add that I've read that the blue dials were much less common than the silver, originally, but it seems likely that many of the watches with new dials, hands, etc were born silver and converted to blue, since I see a lot of repro blue dial watches. I'm not sure if there is a repro silver dial. Probably.
No love at all for this one. There are only a few Seikos I really like. I'm not sure why this is one of them. I polished the crystal as much as possible with that gritty stuff you mix with water. It's a very slow process but usually does well, except for very deep scratches. These are very hard to find without replacement dials, hands, bezel.
So what are your thoughts? Is it not all original? I’m not very familiar with this one only have seen a few
The repro dials are easy to spot if you do just a little study on these, and the other parts were original. They aren't worth a fortune. Maybe that's why so many decide to make theirs look new rather than original.