Worst bodge 2012 awards: Tissot Seastar Seven

Joris from the Netherlands sent me this Tissot for a service. Click on the image and enlarge it, and you already get a clue to what awaits you…

The dial was “restored”, and I have to put that in quotes. Somebody with a bit of paint and a paintbrush did this job, and you can tell. The artist even did the date ring – check out the numbers on that. If you look carefully, you can see a hole next to the “X”. That doesn’t bode well, and it means one of the dial feet has broken off.

Watch back with custom engraving.

Looks like it needs a service.

Pretty dirty, but no rust.

With the dial ring removed, you can see that something is wrong with the dial. Lots of scratches, and, if you zoom in, glue.

The dial is completely stuck to the case, so I have to lift out the movement, leaving the hour wheel behind. Look at the glue! The master craftsman responsible for this even glued down the wheel driving the date ring at one point, and then realized that that wasn’t such a good idea, so he scratched the glue off with a screwdriver again.

Note the repainted date ring.

The dial has no dial feet, and it’s glued in all around. This makes me shudder.

I remove as much of the glue as I can, and then lift the dial out. Some of the dial paint sticks to the case.

Now you can admire the dial in all its beauty. Definitely the worst redial I’ve seen so far. I admire what you can do with a paintbrush, but it’s a terrible job.

13 thoughts on “Worst bodge 2012 awards: Tissot Seastar Seven

  1. Hi I am an amateur watch/clock collector, in Australia. I obtained a daydate 2571 several years ago. Now I wished to service it . Took it out of case and as there seemed no obvious method of Dial removal-removed Auto module and serviced it. Then went further to see if I could remove Dial to be able to access and oil the hand setting Etc.
    Under the Dial there is a ‘nylon’? spacer and there seem to be two through rods, but no clear release method. There are narrow slots around the Dial rods-and I have the feeling that one could lever the Dial off with a screwdriver??
    Could you comment on this type of Dial mounting to assist me to safely remove the dial.
    The Dial is in good condition, undamaged movement also quite good.

  2. Very entertaining post! I have a Seastar Seven which I purchased on ebay from a private seller. I did not realize until I purchased that the dial was refinished. The owner said that it was the lumes only that were redone. The repaint is pretty mediocre and not much better than this one. Many of these 40 year old Tissot watches are refinished and seem to come from Asia.

    It’s a 781-1 movement and I would love to find an original dial for this watch. I think that an original dial, no matter how scratched and corroded still looks better than a repaint.

  3. That repaint is a lot better than I could manage… but it certainly isn’t good 😉

    SeaStar dials seem to be in short supply on eBay at the moment, and those that are there seem to be somewhat over-priced; there is a complete 784-2 movement with dial from Portugal for US$80, but that is probably cheaper than an actual professional restoration? Not an ideal colour for that case though…

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