eBay – Watch Case

22 Dec 2018

That crystal had a rough life

eBay, Seiko Kakume 6138-0030 6138, 6138-0030, eBay, Seiko

Once I took the watch apart, I couldn't help myself but to work on the crystal. I did some research and find out that the Seiko branded Hardlex Crystal is somewhere around 7 on the hardness scale from 0 to 10. I also find out that it is possible to remove scratches with a few different levels of sand paper. First I started with a thicker grit of 800 until the deeper scratches disappeared. That initial process was taking quite a long time so I moved down a bit and tried 400 grit. Then I move on to a very…

The initial disassembly.

eBay, My Watchbox, Seiko Kakume 6138-0030 6138-0030, Kakume, Repair, Seiko

I waited a whole five minutes before I decided to open the watch and take a look at the movement. And yeah...I didn't stop after lifting the back cover. I didn't have my tool box with me at that time but I still managed to take off the blue outer bezel and remove the crystal. Unfortunately while taking out the movement I removed the stem and made a mistake while doing so. I wiggled the movement before putting it back and couldn't get stem back in place. That is a whole different story that lead to another adventure I will…

My first eBay watch.

eBay, Seiko Kakume 6138-0030 6138, eBay, Kakume, Seiko

I can’t say it was an impulse buy, but I wasn’t really planning in advance. I sometimes browse eBay for used Seiko 6138 or Seiko 6139 models but didn’t actually think I will find one worth buying. Somehow, this time was different and after a few exchanges with the seller to make sure that the watch runs, is authentic and wasn’t serviced for a long time, I decided to buy Seiko 6138-0030, aka Kakume. The history of the Seiko 6138 and 6139 models is really interesting and I will definately write more about it in the future. You can see…