KMII
[Montblanc Moderator]
50281
The three magic letters - VFA 🇯🇵
Many years ago, before Grand Seiko became a relatively common occurrence in watch circles, lots of the history was only known to a select few outside of Japan. And bagging one of the original Grand Seiko VFAs - Very Finely Adjusted - mechanical pieces was perhaps easier as a result.
As often with the disadvantage of the delayed (or too late) birth, I missed that period, unfortunately. Still, many years ago I acquired a successor VFA, from the early Quartz era - the 3823-7000. While the accuracy nowadays is perhaps not exactly as good as it has been when it left the factory half a century ago it’s still decent enough.
And it still makes for a fun historical oddity in the collection.
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The three magic letters - VFA 🇯🇵
Many years ago, before Grand Seiko became a relatively common occurrence in watch circles, lots of the history was only known to a select few outside of Japan. And bagging one of the original Grand Seiko VFAs - Very Finely Adjusted - mechanical pieces was...
The window shows both the day of the week (in Chinese characters and the date.
In the photo, Sunday, the 15th is being displayed.
Written Japanese extensively borrows from/uses logograms of Chinese origin, kind of analogous to the way the English is written using the Latin alphabet.
So, in so far as the date window is concerned, both Japanese and Chinese readers would recognize the displayed date easily and in the same way. (They'd pronounce it differently, though).
It’s a day date…
The first is the day and you can choose to either have it in English or in kanji (which I chose for the picture). Like usually with Seiko Day Dates the day is in blue font on Saturday and red on Sunday 😊👍🏻
Cool, I didn't know that GS had offered a non-mechanical "VFA"
I believe the specially adjusted quartz GS' now have a star at 6 o'clock to show for it.
There are some members here with VFAs…
And several VFAs were launched in the last years, too.
This is a very charming watch!
And OMG half a century for a quartz watch - this is not easy to wrap around my head!
And works just like out of the box, too 😁👍🏻
Not quite the accuracy of a modern 9F movement but definitely good enough 😊
They surely know how to build a proper quartz movement!
And they already knew that bqck then
They have been doing both…
Using quartz to reduce the costs and price point as well as investing into the technology in such a way to make the most accurate timepieces, too, including growing their own crystals for calibers such as the 9F 😊👍🏻
Fine, very fine indeed.
The VFA, albeit mechanical, was the tipping point for vintage Seiko at auction. I may be wrong but I think Phillips may have been the first of the big three to catalogue a vintage Grand Seiko. It was (is) pretty cool. Yours is a cool reference also, the c...
Will let you know the next time I take it for a change…
I do remember last time it took a while to find a watch AD with the correct one, though 😊🤷🏻♂️
Yes, they are magic letters
Love the piece aesthetically. Didn't know they had vfa for quartz. They recently released reissues of some vfa. I saw a mint original at the GS Boutique when they were having an event. Thanks for the post!
The new ones are spectacular specimen…
Of mechanical watch making. With superb finishing for the cases, too 👌🏻👍🏻