The Vintage Watcher

Here’s a watch you don’t see everyday on ebay.  This is a Seiko manufacture under their Alba sub-brand.  Alba is a line of watches from Seiko that appeal to a younger, hipper demographic.  They seem to work a lot with name designers and hence, the Alba line has a more contemporary feel.  Still, these watches are marketed and sold only in Japan (maybe other areas in Asia, as well) so are sometimes hard to find information about or acquire.  The Orvitax line existed in the 1990’s, and were a line of “diver style” influenced watches.  I like the designs of this watch, with the coin-edged bezels, the simple, yet proportionally correct hands, and the large metal “shroud” that makes up the chunky part of the case.  These watches came on rubber straps or stainless bracelets like the one in the picture.  The unfortunate thing is that many of these bracelets were rather small, like 6.5” wrist size small, which is really small for a European or American man’s wrist. Anyway, like the little use of orange in this watch and also the lumed hands and hour markers.  Since it is Seiko, the movement is quartz, which I’m sure is up to Seiko quality. Seller wants $200 for it, which seems a reasonable price, seeing as these watches probably retailed in Japan for around that.  The white face seems to be more rare than the darker black face dials.  I’d buy this this here, but I need to save some money for my big watch purchase later this year.