From my collection is this Seiko 5, an affordable automatic watch and now more than 12 years old, ref. SKWX55K, with a cal. 7S26 movement, and namely Seiko 5 7s26-8760 (first series of numbers (and one letter) stands for the movement caliber, the second designates case modification).
Bought by me personally in early 2002 here in Moscow and it cost me RUB 1,590 which is about US$50.
It was sold without a box or anything just a little clear plastic bag but there was a seiko manual and a tag with the ref number and the caliber designation as you can see below.
A stainless steel case.
There is even some water resistance as you can see on the back -- WP which stands, most likely, for water protected which is Seiko's most basic water protection strictly against splashes and rain, nothing more.
There is also a number -- 155021 -- which allows you to date the watch, 1 stands for the first year in a decade, which in this case has got to be 2001, while 5 stands for the month of May. No idea what the other cyphers stand for (if anything), and I bought it in March 2002.
Seiko 5's cheap bracelet which I found to be not quite as cheap as people make out. It is an OK bracelet as far as I am concerned.
Out of curiosity I made some searches on the internet to see if I could find the watch. Well I found lots of
similar watches but not quite the same. But then in 2009 someone in Belgium was selling
the same watch, but with a white dial and in a condition much worse than mine for the whole of US$ 100.
Also on
Rakuten another Seiko 5 7s26-8760 with the same watch case (to which the number 8760 attests) but with a different dial and markers and minus the bracelet
was sold for US$ 120, with the strap being not original, someone nicked the bracelet.
So does it mean that I bought my watch for US$50 in 2002 and now -- 12 years later -- can sell it from US$100 to US$120?
What can you say about the caliber 7s26?
The movement is very popular, strictly meaning -- widespread, because Seiko used to put it in many of its watch models and apparently continues to do so, even though there is already a replacement. And it was used not only in cheaper Seiko 5s but also in rather more expensive real diver's watches such as the Seiko Monster.
It is an automatic movement, which winds from the motion of your hand, the autowind module is very reliable and simple -- consists of only three parts. But there is no handwinding. The lack of handwinding makes this movement also one of the cheapest, especially taking into account its automatic assembly line production.
However the absence of the handwinding feature opens Seiko to accusations of excessive cheapness.
This watch will not suit every one. As it happened to me. I don't wear watches 10-12 hours a day every single day of the week. So the autowind was unable to maintain power. Also the lack of handwind is unlikely to be appreciated by those who have multiple wearable watches and rotate them as I do too. For this reason I did not wear this watch much and it spent upwards of 10 years in my desk. But it looks almost like new and you just have to move it a little for it to start counting time.
This 7s26 caliber has no hack feature either, but you can imitate it to good effect using so called back-hack (or poor man's hack), all you need to do is to make a little pressure on the winding crown while it is in hand-setting position, in reverse to the movement of hands. For example, you may want to do it if you want to set your watch very precisely (to the second). Though it is not recommended apparently.
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