Hallo Everybody,

a dilemma is puzzling me:

Is it at all possible that a Seikosha WWII military dialled could bear a D640277H number on his snapback?
I own that watch.
Tnks for your comments.
rgds

Hello Enzo,

Good to hear from you.

There is no mention of Seikosha brand DH wristwatches in any of my WWII German military timepiece resources.

Imperial Japan needed all the watches Seikosha could make. Japan made up the difference with as many Swiss watches as it could get through. For this reason it's hard to imagine that Seikosha sold wristwatches to Germany during WWII. Further, as we know, DH watch regulations called for screw back cases, only a few legitimate snap-back cases are known.

There is a more likely source of the DH marks. The Red Army captured many Japanese troops at the end of the war in 1945. For this reason, Russians would have had access to Seikosha wristwatches. I'm sure they seized all they could get. Thus, your Seikosha could have found it's way into the former Soviet Union after the war. My guess is that your watch was recently stamped with fake D..H markings by a Russian or Ukrainian seller hoping to sell the watch for more money.

If I am correct, it is sad that the watch was defaced with bogus DH markings. Genuine Japanese military marked Seikosha watches are alot harder to find than D...H watches and generally more expensive as well.

If you have the time to post images of the dial and caseback of your Seikosha I would like to see it. If I am correct or not your Seikosha sounds like an interesting military watch.

Best regards,
Greg

Hallo Greg,
tnks for your answer with was very sharp and focused.
In principle i fully agree with you and the reason why i posted was to have somee kind of sharing to my thoughts because ''nobody knows everything''.
but this is somehow a strange case and it is worth of additional research.
The pic i include shows the back and also the dial and case in background .
even if blurried the mil dial is evident and the case as well.
But what puzzled me is the back, which is flush with the case and seems belonging originally with it.
As you will see under BODEN EDENSHAL there is a little sign which i watch with a X70 stereo zoom mic and it seems an stylized anchor with a rope as an ''s''. oriented in the sense of the writing , Japanese reads and write in vertical!!??
As you will see pitting is all over and is from the same age and cannot be procured artifificially that way.
The price i payied being very low does't justify a fake and i bought from a Japanese veteran.
So i do not think i am in the presence of a fake, not with my modest knowledge.
Inner of caseback is polished in circles.
Diametre of the watch is 30 millimetres, movement is signed Seikoscha, 10''' ( for which i will give general comments in a future post)
It is a real riddle to me and beside any reasonable thoughts this watch seems to me genuine.
A tie between Seikosha and German watch should lie somewhere. But where?
tnks rgds

I see what you mean, Enzo. The markings on the case back do not look fake at all.

In the background, I see solid lugs on the case body, of the type commonly used in Wehrmacht issued wristwatches. Late issued Seikosha wristwatches tended to have spring bars.

The snap on case back is unusual for a DH watch. The only DH with a snap back in Konrad Knirim's book is a Wehrmacht woman's watch. Mens DH watches were around 33mm, while women's DH watches were about 28mm. Most women's DH watches had screw backs.

On the other hand, Japanese men's military wristwatches of WWII tended to be rather small and most of them had snap backs.

I don't want to speculate too much without seeing more.

If possible, please post pictures of the dial, the inside of the case, and the movement. If you have the size of the movement that would also be of use.


Thanks,

Greg

Hi Greg,
tnks for your comments. I add these pics, movmt is a 10''', you should recognise a very familiar mvmt to you where They copied from.
Tnks rgds
enzo

Hello Enzo. I have two Seikosa WW11 Japanese military watches and have handled at least five or six more of these watches. Your watch is certainly an anomaly to what most of us have seen.
I would like to see a better scan of the movement and the set bridge side of the watch. Also, is your watch a 7 jewel movement marked Seikosa?

Hallo, HERNEST,
thns for your comments, as you see the movement is marked Seikosha, it is a 10 lignes one, i will cont the juwels and thake a pic of the st bridge and post it and i agree it is a styrandge anomaly.
Also the mvmt fits perfectly in the case!!
do yoiu have any sign of a possible connection between German and jap producer?
did you noticed the similarity of this mvmt with the 987 Elgin? Only few details differs!
rgds
enzo

Hi Ernest
sorry for the gram errors, i must correct myself , i wanted to say 539 Elgin,
rgds
enzo

Hi Enzo, Your watch gets more interesting with each picture.

Porcealine dials were common on early Seikosha wristwatches, but the font used to print “Seiko” on your dial is not the same as any of the others I have seen. Not that I am an expert on early Seikos, maybe someone else has seen this font before.

As noted by Ernest, it would help us out if we could see a clear picture of each side of the movement.

By the way, is there any other serial number on the case? Check the outside rim of the case between the lugs.

Thanks,

Greg

Good morning Lindell, Greg and collegues,

I share the respect you have for Seiko and i found vey many interesting news on the Bullettin , Aug 2002!!!!
I will post the pic on my mvmt as soon as i can,
tnks rgds
enzo

Hallo,
i would like to add the flw Japanese Navy insignia chart and to point out that the sign on the back on my Seikosha resembles the one in bottom line ''Midshipman naval aviation''.
I still researching infos on the rest.
rgds

Hello Enzo , thanks for sharing this interesting wrist watch.We sometimes now adays don,t know much about the history of clock and watch makers.I for one not long ago learned Seokosha and Seiko were the same company, and Seikosha made clocks, which i would love to have one in my collection.
Millitary watches are a fascinating subject, so long ago, and who knows what happened at the time, sure wish better records were kept.
You have a interesting collection, do you have more German millitary timepieces?

Hi Kevin,
tnks much for your interest and comment.
Yes, i try to have some Germans and i should say they are my first interest at the moment.
You hit the point when you say that probably we do not know all today about the past history of Japanese military timepieces or German ones.
I do not sleep at night now to figure why a Seikosha bears the DH markings and whether i am right to consider that sign below a Japanese insigna or it is a production of my imagination...
I must guess some kind of deployment abroad of one of the two but this desn't justify the two different markings.
I started this post as a dilemma of mine and at the moment it still is,
tnks rgds
Enzo

Good aft,
i am back again to post the mvmt pics hoping to receive some news, good or bad, about the watch.
I hope they are clear enough.
Unfortunately i had no time yet to make the set bridge but i left the broken one as reference.
tnks rgds
Enzo

Enzo, i am a novice , but to me the Sekosha looks very swiss to me, thanks for sharing your pictures and the time you put into posting.

Kevin,
i appreciate that and I hope nobody will be upset if I say that 99.9% of watches ever produced looks Swiss since the good old Abraham-Louis B. but better than that to me this mvmt recalls the Elgin 539 from the size for the bridges shape and arrangement and lack of jewels on the early models as i said before. Seiko has an old hystory in watchmaking and i hope the following link will be of use. I hope that I correctly caught the sense of your post and if not i kindly ask you to tell me.
Tnks and rgds
http://www.freewebs.com/billyschorr/japanesemiltimepieces.htm

Good pictures, Enzo.

It looks like the movements I have seen in other early Seikosha watches, except those movements were rather small, like the watches they were in.

Could you provide the diameter of the pillar plate of your movement in millimeters?

Thanks,
Greg

Hallo Greg,
the mvmt is a 10 lignes, equiv to 22.2 millimitres hope it helps,
tnks
Enzo

Hi Enzo.

At last, I have had a chance to look at my Seikosha movements. Several are extremely close to yours, and two are exactly the same. Thus, I conclude your movement is 100% Seikosha.

With 11 jewels, I am of the impression it is a commercial type watch. Military watches are equiped with "working" jewels; thus we see 7,9, or 15 jewel movments with a jewel for each pivot of a wheel. 11 jewel movements are more often civilian.

The case looks like an ordinary Seikosha case. The only differences are the fixed bars and the German language "Boden Stahl" and D...H markings on your case. Those I have are all marked in English, "STAINLESS STEEL BACK". It's strange, but during most of WWII, Seikosha watch backs continued to be marked in English.

Each case back in my accumulation has a serial number on the outside of the case back, some have one serial number above a different serial number, each set with different fonts. One case has number sevens of a similar style to those stamped on the back of yours. But, non of them have any DH letters, only serial numbers.

The movement in your watch does not conform to WWII German military standards. Your watch has eleven jewels, while German DH watches all have at least 15. German issued DH watches have shock proof balance jewels, while your Seiko has ordinary balance jewels.

Further, the dial on your watch is not black and it does not have luminous hands, numbers nor even lunimous dots. The case is not a screw back made to take the regulation D...H case back wrench, it is a snap-back. Further, the size is different from German DH sizes.

Thus, your watch does not appear to have any connection with a German military contract watch. The pitted over German-type markings are convincing, but totally out of place.

From collecting other militaria, I am aware that Japan and the Axis powers did do some trade with each other. Japan had rifles made for them on contact in Italy, and Japan purchased high quality pistols from Germany for their officers of high rank. Japan purchased watches from the Swiss the same as Geramany did, but of a lower quality. The trade for arms and technical equipment was for the most part one-way. From Europe to Japan.

Without wild speculation to account for the markings on your watch, I would assume it's a private purchase Seikosha most likely used by a member of the Japanese military in WWII.

If the markings are not fake, then maybe they are the result of an abandoned attempt to make watches for Germany, which was shelved as the war progressed? This does not seem likely to me, but I don't know everything. Otherwise we can't rule out fake markings followed up with artificial acid pitting.

Thank you for sharing your watch. While it's not a rare Japanese DH watch, it's worth repairing. WWII vintage Seiko wristwatches are getting hard to find.

Best regards,
Greg

Hallo Enzo,
as I do not see the complete watch I only can guess:
The back and maybe the complete case is obviously German. Its too bad condition to be faked.
But why shouldnt anyone put a Japanese movement and dial inside any time later than 1945??
Regards Konrad Knirim

Konrad,
many thanks for your prompt intervention!
As you rightly commented it would have been a too cheap fake to have made all that and probably that is not the way to explain it.
The option of a marriage of the Seiko movement with a German case was a possible answer and Greg and me advanced it as possible as well some other possible options.
Still , the movement fits tight in the case as well as the dial and that is to be noted as an important fact.
Additionaly I am not aware of a 10 lignes moviment housed in a D...H case, you surely know if possible....and on top of that was any snapback stamped D...H?
You would probably need to see some more pics of the ''riddle'' so please tell, if you like, what i can add so to stop guessing because it is hot over here in Rome and all the brain activity i am putting into that is really stressing me!!
Tnks again to you and all,
rgds
Enzo