You can find my original IHD-post
here.
It came with the original "fishbone" bracelet, but I removed that the first thing when I got home. Talk about rattly...
Well, I must admit that I changed my opinion of the bracelet since then, it's still rattly but I see it in a good way instead. The hidden lugs are 19mm but the bracelet flares out to 22mm to taper down to 16 or 17mm by the stamped metal clasp. It's very comfortable and the tapering makes it rather top-heavy but that's not necessarily a bad thing, rather adds to the comfort IMO.
This watch comes in several variations but this configuration is the one I like the most with an orange central second hand, applied metallic Seiko logo and no '5' or 'Speedtimer' logos. It's an automatic chronograph that can be hand-wound and the hand-winding feels smooth and effective. It has no proper second hand but honestly, I have never missed one either, I prefer the two sub-dial layout. The inward-sloping sides of the watch makes it look like the watch is floating just above the wrist when worn which looks kind of cool and also adds to the wearing comfort since the case it's no less than 44mm wide!
The case is nicely brushed on the top-side and polished on the side and back. Bezel is polished with a matte black and red tachy insert. The chronograph's push-buttons are polished with four thin grooves in them and the small crown does not screw in and can sometimes be a bit hard to pull out. But the action is very precise, only thing to complain about is that it can be a bit stubborn when adjusting the day of the week as the day wheel sometimes won't skip forward. Not a big problem, it just takes a few extra seconds to set the day.
The crystal seems to be some kind of proper glass, don't know if Seiko used Hardlex back then, but it's not acrylic and certainly not sapphire. But I still haven't managed to put even a hairline on the crystal yet so it seems like it's very tough. It's raised above the bezel and has a slight dome to it.
The dial is matte black (really black!) and the hour indexes are slightly raised with (since long dead) lume on them. The day and date windows has a polished frame around them, very subtle and almost impossible to capture with the camera, but can be seen in the pics inside the link posted above. The sub-dials are sort of recessed in the dial and silver metallic in the colour with black hands. The central hour and minute hands are painted white with black parts closest to the center. Lumed inside, but again, the glow is since long dead.
The chronograph counts up to 12 hours (sub-dial at 12) with a 30 minute counter (sub-dial at 6) and depending on if the chronograph's hour hand is on a blank field or on a coloured (orange) field determines if the timing is in the first or second half of the hour. The push-buttons have a very distinct feel to them, and the resetting is still very accurate, but sometimes the seconds hand is off by a fraction of a millimeter but for a 40 year old (March 1971) mechanical watch that is totally acceptable. Remember, the 6138 is one of the first automatic chronograph calibers ever produced.
I hope you enjoyed this mini-review of one of my favourite vintage watches! I have never written a review in English before so please feel free to alert me if something seems unclear.
Cheers! :-)
Daniel Z.
