[ewand]

Whether you call the model a "Silver Pogue" or if you insist on only referring to yellow 6139-6005s as "Pogues", the silver-dial 6139-600x variant is both rare and increasingly popular.

I'd like to try and gather what we collectively know, in one place if possible - so please let us know about Silver Pogues you have ...

What I know about Silver Pogues

• They were available from 1969 - I have had 3 PROOFs in my hand, 2 from July and 1 from October. All were 6139-6000, with WATER 70M PROOF on the dial and WATERPROOF casebacks. The PROOF dial is always a 6030T dial code; 6030R PROOFs are ebay fakes.
• There are 6139-6001 watches with Silver 6030T dials.
  • Q: has anyone ever seen a 6139-6001 with 6030R dial and confirmed the dial is real? In any colour?
• There are 6139-6002 models with WATER 70m RESIST dials in both 6030T and 6030R variants. There are no -6005 or -6009 watches with a silver dial.
• There are 1972 onward 6030T and 6030R dial variants with no text at 9 o'clock
• All Silver dial 6139-600x have a black/gray chapter ring
• No Seiko catalog has ever been proven to show a silver dial watch
  • Q: The monochrome Universal Suppliers catalog (here) that's used as proof of the "Aussie Pogue" existing, has one image which most people assume is a yellow dial watch...
    
    
    
    ... but the key at the start of the catalog does say ...
    
    
    
    ... so it is always possible that the above image is not yellow, but "grey".

My theory
There's nothing worse than an armchair expert who bases their opinion on a hunch with nothing to back it up.
That said, I have some theories about Silver 6139s that I'd like to test - if you think this (or any of the above assertions) is wrong, and can point to evidence to that effect, please speak up. Maybe we'll all learn something.

• There were no JDM silver dial 6139-600x - ie no 5 Sports Speedtimers.
  • Q: did they even sell the silver 6139-600x in Japan? I somehow doubt it as there were so many other JDM only variants, why would they need to?
• The Silver 6139-600x were only sold in what we could say is Asia-Pacific - perhaps centering around Australia and Hong Kong - not Europe or North America
• Most will have been shipped with Stelux President bracelet
  • Perhaps the chiclet bracelet was an option; there are certainly some which purport to be one-owner watches with chiclet bracelet
  • Is there any evidence that a silver-dial watch came on an H-link bracelet?
  • I have had 2x 70M PROOF watches which came to me in barn-find condition on straight-end diamondback bracelets (like this)... not a great fit but it seems like a coincidence...
• The Day wheel on Silver watches is always either Chinese or Roman (I. II, III etc)
  • All silver 6139-6000 PROOFs I've seen are Chinese... I'd be inclined to think that it was only sold in Hong Kong, and all of them have Chinese wheels, then they added Roman as an alternative when the 6001/2 came out and was more widely distributed
  • As a reminder - the Chinese day wheel has
    • 日 - Sunday
    • 一 - Monday
    • 二 - Tuesday
    • 三 - Wednesday
    • 四 - Thursday
    • 五 - Friday
    • 六 - Saturday
  • Some owners of Silver dial watches report Kanji day wheels - is it possible they're getting Kanji and Chinese mixed up?
  • I know of one Silver with an Italian day wheel (which I think is pretty unusual in itself), but wonder if it and any other languages are outliers (maybe a previous owner got the day wheel swapped during a service)

 

[ewand]

How about the day wheels, @Grammarofdesign & @TheTigerUK ...? Are they Roman?

 

[ewand]

A 60xxxx serial number with a RESIST 6030R dial?
My guess is that your watch was delivered with a Spanish day wheel, but a different coloured dial...

 

[ewand]

My plain dial is Roman

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That's weird. I always thought the Romans marked it as IV ...

 

[ewand]

In clock making "4" in Roman numerals is "IIII" as opposed to normal convention "IV"

Well, so it is. I said we might learn something

 

[ewand]

Makes sense, some notes I have show it came from a once prolific forum member who disappeared after a scandal on this forum, fan of Enicar watches I recall

I'm not saying you have a fake dial - to me, it looks like it's consistent with a RESIST R dial I have... so I'd suggest at minimum your case back has been swapped with a 1976 watch, or possibly the case and/or movement might be from one watch, and the dial from another...

 

[ewand]

This Link is not working for me

Oops.... two different watches from auctions, 3 years and located 11,000 miles apart from each other.

 

[ewand]

It's Ok, I know the dial is true and aware the watch is a bitzer, hadn't realised the day wheel issue though in that Spanish didn't apply to these. Pollyc probably remembers detail this one.

To be clear: the Spanish day wheel thing is my theory (that all Silvers originall had Chinese or Roman), which I'm testing by asking people to come forward with watches that disprove it... Thanks for participating in the test

 

[ewand]

Interesting theory about Thong Sia doing a special order, at least for the first batch. It could well stack up that Seiko never intended the silver dial to be mainstream and that's why all of the catalog photos show blue or yellow dial watches. Even the History of the Speedtimer book has no mention or photos of a Silver-dial 6139-600x.

If Thong Sia was the exclusive distributor, were they connected with the publishers of the catalog right at the top (Universal Supplies)?

 

[ewand]

What a set.

Outstanding!

That's the 3rd PROOF silver from July 69 I've seen then. I wonder if anyone can validate one earlier than that?

 

[ewand]

looks like Sole Distributors to me...

 

[ewand]

Just back from service at @Sir Alan ... May 72 6030R dial RESIST, with Roman day wheel...

Wearing on an Uncle Seiko H-link; it came to me on a Stelux President but I've slapped that on another watch for now...

 

[ewand]

cheers Jim, it's a stunner. Back of the dial checks out too...

and it's got a message from a previous service... whatever that says!

 

[ewand]

Yeah, good spot - that looks dicey to me... another one from Instagram a long time back:

Here are the 2 I had, pre-relume:

The lettering looks different too.

Looking elsewhere, I see another old post showing:

Block under 60 on the bezel too. He hasn't posted any photos of the PROOF Silver for 4+ years so I wonder if he's moved it on.
And that dial code looks like 6040 to me...

 

[ewand]

Thanks! To be honest I think it alternates Asian konji (not sure language) and English. I will have to follow up about that when I get back to my stuff and can confirm. I've been on WUS for several years and only just discovered you guys which is pretty awesome for my Seiko love.

Nice one - when you do get your watch(es) back in-hand, it would be good to confirm the first 2 digits of the serial no (for year/month) and the Day wheel language... also, if you could share photos of the clasp and end links of the bracelet too, that would be nice to document

As a reminder - the Chinese day wheel has

• 日 - Sunday
• 一 - Monday
• 二 - Tuesday
• 三 - Wednesday
• 四 - Thursday
• 五 - Friday
• 六 - Saturday

 

[ewand]

Interesting ... There are aftermarket President end links now but yours look like they're probably originals. Not easy to find, that's for sure!

What day wheel does your watch have - English & Roman?

 

[ewand]

This is one of several tell-tales about the legitimacy of a 6030T dial ...

(63) 6139-600x -R and -T dials | The Watch Site

Maybe @DCVW will feature the watch in the next #FeikoFriday. Oh, wait...

Just for the record, in case some future buyer ever decides to search on the internet for their watch, this franken had serial number 4N0646 and was purportedly a 6139-6002 with a WATER 70m RESIST 6030T dial.

 

[ewand]

😂😂@ewand i still remembered when you were erroneously “featured” in #feikofriday and had to prove your way out of it

Yeah, well I didn't necessarily have to "prove" my watch was genuine, I just made the point that it was (and sent high res images), and that the post was wrong. TBF, the text of the post was corrected but you can't remove a single image from a post on IG so the photo stayed on the post (DCVW on Instagram: “We get a lot of people that reach out to us, alerting us to #feiko examples for sale on various platforms (in particular eBay), most state…” )

Anyway, it went to a good home - a collector I've met years before and had a beer with. All's well that ends well.

 

[ewand]

No need to apologise for @DCVW , John - he's been largely absent anyway, except for trying to puff up the black dial 6139-6010 as "True Bruce Lee". During the back-and-forth we had with my Kakume being called out as a fake, he never responded to my direct messages on IG and removed the comments I put on the post. When I later pointed out via DM that the silver RESIST discusssed earlier in this thread was a fake, I got blocked. If someone blocks you on IG it looks to you like they just don't exist - you don't see their profile or any of their posts when searching, unless you happen to have another IG account and check from there

We all make mistakes, and what's great about SCWF and most of our members is the willingness to share, to learn and even to admit if we got something wrong and correct it for the future. As to our friend at DCVW ... oh the irony; presenting yourself as an expert then not acknowledging or handling complaints well... from the last Feiko Friday post

Anyway. Back to the matter at hand.

i am told the later no text models are only 6002's

Corect - the silver dials are all 6000/6001/6002. The transitions appear to be the same as with other colours - so up to mid 1970 we'd see PROOF/PROOF watches then PROOF/RESIST and RESIST/RESIST 6001s, with 6030T dials, then later RESIST/RESIST 6002s, with 6030T or 6030R dials. 1972 is the last time we'd expect to see a RESIST marked 6002.

dials i have seen all state Chronograph Automatic

Corect - they were all 3-line 6030T/6030R marked dials, no 6009 or 6005/7.

and i am told they started somewhere in the early 1972's

No-text models may have started from mid/late 1972 - I have a genuine silver RESIST 6030R dial which is dated May 1972.

i am also told they also had a different rotor too which has writing on it too

Not as a rule; I've never seen a silver with DAINISEIKOSHA etc on the Rotor - only US market watches had that AFAIK and there was never a silver dial Americas watch.

are the hands the same as the other models too?
Nope.

 

[ewand]

Chiming in on @tom1914's watch - that dial looks fine to me too, in fact it shows one tell-tale you don't typically get on aftermarket, RESIST, 6030R dials - the stroke at 9 oclock is short, whereas on 6030T RESIST and PROOF dials, it's long.

(I do wonder if the hour hand is a replacement or has been relumed, and in fact, wonder if the dial lume has also been re-done at some point - it does look very clean compared to the minute hand)

As for @Lince's PROOF above; who knows why it has a Spanish day wheel... maybe that was an option from the factory at point of manufacture, or maybe it was swapped at some point in the past during a service... I'd imagine if you were Spanish and you were getting the watch serviced in the 1980s or whenever, you might well add a few extra pesetas to swap the day wheel, especially if the original was English & Chinese...