Vintage Seiko 6217-7000 World Timer, their first GMT watches released for the Olympics

The 6217-7000 is Seiko's first GMT watch and the first units with the white dial were released in 1964, in time for the Tokyo Olympics that year.

The watch has 4 hands (hour, minute, second and GMT), an inner bezel showing cities around the world, and a date display.

Side view showing the big crown

 

The back shows the correct model number, and the serial number indicates this watch to be 'manufactured' in August 1967. There is a story, however, that suggests that the date of manufacture may have been different from date of market release. It is said that Seiko produced too many of the watches for the 1964 Olympics that they re-issued the watch in time for the 1968 Mexico Olympics. That assumes and means they didn't etch the serial numbers on the watches despite these being made years earlier. The first batch are more favored by collectors and those in good condition sell for upwards of 1,500 USD. I saw a near mint piece being sold for 2,200 USD. That included the original watch and bracelet, box and manual.

The other side view

Another view of the dial

Close up of the dial showing the general condition as well as the model number

Inside the watch is a Cal. 6217 that runs at 18,000 A/h. This is the same movement inside Seiko's famed 62MAS diver.

 

The inside of the back reveals the model number and the maker - Seiko's Daini factory

A wrist shot after I got back the watch from a routine maintenance check

The watch after my watch guy found me a suitable replacement bracelet - looks great!

The Philippines finally won an Olympic gold medal through the efforts of Hidilyn Diaz in weightlifting. I will write about this in another article. The Tokyo Olympics was supposed to be last year but due to the pandemic it was postponed and currently being held after a long delay and more prospects of cancellation. Will the country win another medal this year? Let's hope so and maybe another gold will make this an even more memorable year for Philippine athletes.

A more recent wrist shot

Well, this is definitely a keeper and for many strong reasons including it being Seiko's first GMT watch and one commemorating the Olympics.

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A vintage Seiko 6139-6002 Pepsi

The first automatic chronograph in space was a Seiko 6139-6005 that was worn by Col. William Pogue on the SkyLab.  Closely related to the Pogue, the watch is not one but generally called a Pogue like other similar models is the 6139-6002. 

The dial features a single register with day and date complications. There is an external bezel that is fixed and in this case is colored red (faded) and blue. The colors earned it the Pepsi moniker like other watches with same color scheme (there's also a coke - red and black). There is an inner bezel that's supposed to rotate but this one's defective.

View showing the crown and chronograph buttons

The other side view showing the overall condition of the case.

Case back showing the model and serial numbers. The serial numbers indicate this watch to have been manufactured in November 1975. The model number shows the watch to have a Cal. 6139 running it. This is likely the Cal. 6139B that runs at 21,600 beats per hour.

This close-up shows the deterioration (discoloration?) on the dial.

Another close-up. The lumes on the hands and hour markers are no longer working.

Wrist shot the first time I wore the watch

This is another collectible and there are several models of the 6139 series that are sought after including what is  also called the Coke. I have yet to get one of that model of the 6139.

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Meals for rainy days - DIY ramen

It's been raining the past few days and someone said this might be one of those "siyam-siyam" referring to the duration of the heavy rains. "Siyam-siyam" directly translates into "nine-nine", and  I am not, however, going to dwell on the weather for this post. Rather, I will talk about what's good to eat during these times. Rainy days are also cooler days and what's really suitable for this weather is something that has soup in it. That would typically be nilaga, tinola or sinigang if you want some Filipino dish for your meals. We had some nilagang manok (literally boiled chicken, this is a clear broth usually with lettuce and potatoes) the previous day that we enjoyed for lunch and dinner. Some people would like some noodles and perhaps sotanghon or misua come to mind if you want something with soup. In our case, we love ramen so we crave for some during rainy days. While there's instant ramen (Nissin has some good ones), these are not as satisfying as the real deal. Fortunately, there's a middle ground...

DIY ramen from the ready made broth, noodles and chashu we usually buy from a Japanese grocery. I chanced upon a newly delivered salmon sashimi. Unfortunately, we didn't have other ingredients for the ramen except for nori (seaweed).

DIY tonkotsu ramen with chashu and nori - good enough for the rainy days!

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A vintage Cortebert Cal. 697 watch

I've had a few Cortebert watches including those that I have already parted with. Most if not all had something I didn't want on my vintage watches. These included replaced crowns and etchings on the case back bearing the names of previous owners. Other collectors don't seem to mind and acquired those watches. And so finally I was able to get one that suited my preferences. It didn't hurt that the watch also had a nice patina on the dial.

 

The watch features dauphin hour and minute hands and a combination of numeral and bullet hour markers. There are no day or date complications.

Side view showing the signed crown

The other side view

The case back with the Grand Prix emblem and what looks like a serial number at the bottom. No etches here!

The movement is a Cal. 697, which runs at 18,000 A/h with a potential reserve of 44h. The photo is from the seller in Serbia from whom I got a few watches before. I have not opened the watch myself so far.

A close-up of the dial showing the patina on the watch

A wrist shot after I changed the strap to a customized pair from Two One Four Straps

The potential reserve for the Cal. 697 movement was 44h but I was able to record 55.25h on a full wind! On average, the watch runs at 53 to 54 hours. That's spectacular for a very old watch. One of my previous Corteberts ran for an average of 52.5h so I guess these in-house movements are the state of the art of its time.

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On vaccinations vs. Covid-19

I got vaccinated last April (first dose) and May (second dose). As I had no choice like many others, I got Sinovac, the Chinese-made vaccine that under normal circumstances would probably have not been maligned so much. I won't write about the controversies about the vaccine or the politics about this. Suffice it to say here that whatever protection it provides is better than nothing. I got vaccinated at a nearby mall and the procedure was very efficient. The staff were well-trained and well-versed in serving the people.

View of the vaccination set-up at Robinsons Antipolo. Much of the atrium, which is used for bazaars and other events is currently allocated for vaccinations. Similar set-ups may be found in other malls as well including SM Masinag and Ayala Feliz (despite it being in Pasig) for Antipolo residents.

Giveaways after the vaccination - I wonder if these were part of the budget or perhaps donated. Whatever, these are very welcome for people after their vaccination.

Most of my family including my parents and siblings are already vaccinated. Even the other members of our household are also already vaccinated with only one not yet getting her call for her turn in vaccination. Most of us got Sinovac but my sister and her husband got Astra Zeneca and my brother's getting Moderna soon. We were joking about our help who just recently got vaccinated and received the Pfizer vaccine. I will not deny that we will likely get vaccinated again within the year. Towards the end of the year there will probably be all the options available to us. In fact, we have reservations for doses of Novavax that will be arriving later in the year. We feel we might need to do this partly for peace of mind and partly because we plan to be back to traveling soon.

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Sashimi and tempura from Jaam House of Sushi

We wanted to have an advance celebration of Father's Day at my parents' home in Cainta. And knowing that Tatay likes to eat Japanese food, we ordered sashimi and tempura for a Saturday lunch. We decided to try a recommendation from one of our friends. JAAM House of Sushi is located at Farmer's Market in Cubao. It was highly recommended by a couple of friends who also loved Japanese food and particularly sushi and sashimi. Since we preferred salmon over tuna, this could be quite tricky because if the salmon part is not the most suitable and is not prepared the right way, you won't have the desired texture and taste (maganit at malansa ang lalabas). So it's good that our order came out right and we got to enjoy our sashimi.

The sashimi platter was generous but we didn't have problems finishing it. There was some leftover from the lunch that my father and brother ate later during dinner.

The mixed tempura was also great with the prawns just the right size.

Here's the contact information for Jaam House of Sushi

We definitely enjoyed the sashimi and tempura and will likely order again for some occasion or maybe lunch or dinner. Just a tip: since you will be arranging the transport (via Grab or Lalamove or other services you may opt to use), be sure to give instructions to the rider for him/her to take care so the sashimi will arrive in great condition.

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On my favorite fruit - the atis

I usually write about fruits in season. These include mangoes, star apples (kaimito) and my favorite sweetsop (atis). Recently, our atis tree and those of our neighbors' have been flowering but producing only a few atis that go on to sizes suitable for picking and eating. And so when I chanced upon my suking fruit vendor one early morning opening a box of atis, I got a few kilograms for our own consumption. My daughter also enjoys eating atis and says she's now really good at separating the meat from the seeds.

Atis from a recent trip to the Antipolo market

What it looks like when you open the fruit. The seeds can be gathered and planted. Otherwise, they're thrown away.

I hope there will still be nice atis in the market this weekend. At times the ones remaining on sale are small and overripe already.

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Osaka Cafe lunch box

We were back at the office again after the easing of quarantine restrictions and our lunches are usually food we order via Grab. We usually stick to the old reliables for our lunches, often rotating among favorite restaurants. But once in a while, we do try to check out other restaurants we spotted in our area. Osaka Cafe is in Teachers Village and we decided to try it out. Fortunately, they are in Grab so it was easy to order lunch. I just wonder if the items in their Grab menu are complete since usually this does not show all of what they offer at the restaurant. Only items for delivery may be indicated in the Grab menu.

The container was a surprise for us. This was a paper-based lunchbox, which I assume is biodegradable.

Chicken katsu lunch with rice, shredded cabbage salad and sushi.

Chicken katsu

Sushi

The food was good but it took a while to be delivered to us. We waited almost 2 hours after we punched in our order. We ordered this through Food Panda and the rider said it took long for the restaurant to prepare our lunchboxes. We'll probably order from them again but hopefully it will not take too long the next time.

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Philippine coucals in the neighborhood

A common sight to us are these rather large dark brown and black birds flying across the road from one lot to another. Most lots that are without houses in our village have trees, bushes, shrubs and grasses that are the homes and habitat of wildlife. The latter includes a variety of mammals, reptiles, amphibians and birds. There is a small river near us where kingfishers thrive and migratory birds gather. But in the inner parts of the village, there are many birds of different sizes and colors that we spot. We're not birdwatchers per se so we just take photos or videos of those we chance upon and share it on social media for our friends to identify for us. Among the welcome sight during our morning walks are the Philippine coucals that we have observed on many occasions. Most recently, I found that they frequent the trees and bamboos around our home and was able to take a few photos while I was in a Zoom call one morning.

Coucal perched on a bamboo near my WFH station at home (our guest room)

I was a bit surprised and elated to see there were actually two of them with one with the longer tail. They hopped from one bamboo stalk to another until they finally flew away.

The Philippine coucal is not an endangered species but to find it inhabiting our village is to me a wonderful thing. It means that these birds are thriving where humans are also habitating. There are also kingfishers, magpie robins, orioles, crows (uwak), bulbuls, pipits, sparrows (maya), doves and owls that we often see or hear. Unfortunately though, there has been a lot of construction ongoing around our village as people discovered our area as a nice place to live in with its good environment. These new homes are sure to disturb or even destroy part of their habitat. The good thing though is most homes (and residents) are old in the sense that trees and other plants in most houses provide the habitat needed by these birds and other wildlife to survive. Our trees, for example, are homes to magpie robins, kingfishers, bulbuls and maya. I try my best to spot them and instruct our staff not to bother their nests. Our daughter is also happy to have them and observed one nest that's quite popular with the birds.

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Vintage Zenith automatic watch

We begin the month of July with a vintage watch feature. I currently have 3 Zenith watches - 1 manual and 2 automatic. One automatic watch is the Respirator that I wrote about recently. The other is this simpler model of a more recent vintage (1970s). Incidentally, Zenith during the time of manufacture of this watch was owned by another Zenith, the American radio/electronics company, which eventually phased out the watch company's mechanical watches in favor of quartz watches. Fortunately, one employee retained the plans, tools and machines for producing what is now the most popular model of the company - the El Primero (https://bespokeunit.com/watches/zenith/#timeline).

The watch has a black dial, baton hands and hour markers, and a date complication

Side view showing the signed crown

The other side view showing the overall good condition of the case and dial

Case back showing the material to be of stainless steel. There is also what appears as a serial number at the bottom. I don't know what 'surf' is supposed to mean but maybe its to describe the stainless steel?

Close-up of the pristine dial

The movement and the inside of the back cover - the Zenith insignia is etched on the inside of the back cover.

Inside the watch is a Caliber 2572PC, which was manufactured between 1975-1978. The movement runs at 28,800 A/h with a potential power reserve of 46h. This is perhaps among the last calibers produced by the company before it discontinued producing mechanical watches for a time.

The watch after I changed the leather straps. These are customized straps from my suking leather craftsman - Two One Four Straps.

The obligatory wrist shot

This is another keeper and will continue to appreciate over time especially as Zenith's brand continues to be strong and its watches' popularity grows.

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