Seiko Aftermarket Dial Identification Thread

As requested, I’m posting a couple of dials that I recently identified (with the help of a few experienced Seiko collectors) as aftermarket.

I am far, far from an expert on this subject, so please correct anything you see mentioned here that is incorrect.

I’m also hoping others will contribute their own findings to the thread so we can build up a bit of an archive for members to refer to. In particular, I’ve heard that examples of 6138-8020 Pandas with AM dials are everywhere now, but have yet to see a good breakdown online explaining how to identify them.

The AM dial industry for vintage Seiko seems to be very robust and the dials are getting incredibly good... good to the point where you can easily own one and have absolutely no idea the dial isn’t original.

We’ll start with this beautiful 6117-6400:



What is scary about this one is that you would assume the linen dial would be very difficult to reproduce.

Below is a comparison of four World Time dials... the one on the left is the dial above. The others are known-correct, taken from Instagram.



The telltale sign is the hours track. Notice the font of the number two in particular. Also notice how on the original dials there is little to no space between the numerals and the linen section of the dial... they butt up against it much more closely.

I think the applied indices are also slightly different as well... the top flat section on the AM dial seems to be slightly narrower.

Next up is a 6138-3002, commonly referred to as the Jumbo.

The one I was considering purchasing had the very desirable Petrol dial. When I showed it to a couple of collector friends, they all immediately identified it as an AM dial.

There are more signs with this one than the World Timer above, but it still presents extremely well and I would not blame anyone if they owned it and considered it 100% authentic.



Things that give this one away:

a) the sun-ray effect across the dial is very pronounced. Genuine petrol dials seem to have a blotchier sheen... and there is a much more pronounced undertone or black in the dial of genuine examples.

b) the O in Seiko is more circular than a genuine dial and is evidently a common trait amongst many AM dials.

c) the sub-dials are the dead giveaway... the example above has circular grooves. Genuine examples are smooth.

d) both of my experts felt the chrono sweep hand (and possibly the sub dial hands as well) are AM. The sweep hand is definitely shorter, however I have trouble distinguishing what makes the sub-dial hands different.

e) the Farsi date wheel... at first I thought it was a very cool and rare detail, but there are no examples of this model that anyone I spoke to knew of... so a red flag from the jump.

For reference, here are two Jumbo dials I believe to be correct and a closeup of a genuine subdial:

Really hard to spot the differences if you are a novice!! And the market is flooded with Seikos. Thank you for this thread!!!

I’m not sure where they are all coming from... hopefully someone with a bit more insight will stumble across the thread and let us know 😀

appreciate the education. Damn, the AM makers are getting really close to the real thing!

Thanks for the great post. Brilliant info for guys like me learning what's what.

Fantastic post. Super helpful!

I would really like to know what makes these (unoriginal) aftermarket and not just dial variations? Are they seen placed in wrong cases for the ref, are there any marks on the rear of the dial that gives the game away, etc? In the Certina world there is a huge variety of dials within the same reference (probably) because of small batches being produced at the time, whereas brands such as Rolex and Omega seem to have less variation.

Just a few weeks ago, I discovered that a Certina DS hands variation that I had previously put down to aftermarket replacements was correct for that particular watch and some of the most characteristic dials in the series have three or more slightly different iterations.

I am not saying that this is all a made up issue, but I would love to know what underlying research has been done.

@ConElPueblo you raise a very interesting point. The AM dial market for Seiko is particularly robust... I think partly because of the active modding performed by Seiko enthusiasts, but I’m speculating.

Examples of AM dials are continually being sold on eBay... I should have searched for them and added them to the original post. Here is a current listing for the World Time dial referenced above for sale right now:



Dead Link/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/223052087046

Here is the Jumbo dial for sale right now:



Dead Link/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/222678016060

As I said in my post, I’m far from an expert on these matters, but I vetted both of the dials above with three long-time Seiko collectors. Each of them reached the same conclusion, citing the same reasons for believing the dials were AM.

That said, I’m completely open to the possibility that these could be manufacturing variations, if other experts come forward with that info.

@sxl2004 thank you for sharing that!!! Insta-follows for all those accounts 👍

Very helpful thank you,

kind regards Max

There's a tell-tale with Seiko 6139s that I presume is common to other models too, though it's hard to check unless you have photos of the service and they've bothered to picture the back of the dial - the first 2 digits of the case serial number are printed on the back of the dial, eg this Pogue:



I had it serviced and explicitly asked the watchmaker (who hadn't heard of this previously, I think) to take a pic of the dial back:

Yes, I believe it does - though it's not exactly handy information to know since you'd need detailed photos of the service to know it's genuine 😉

Bringing this thread back to show the rear of the dial that was in my $3 flee market Seiko 8110:



As you can see this one has the case digits on the back of the dial and I'd be surprised if it was a fake...

We’re gonna need to see the front of that dial please! A $3 8110 find!!! 😲😀

Before, during and after service:



There is massive aging visible, but I chose to keep it as original as possible. Now tested water resistant to 100m, plenty enough for snorkeling 😗

The service was about 130 times as expensive as the watch...