Seikos reference 6217-7000 World Time was introduced in 1964 to coincide with the Olympic games which were held in Tokyo that year. Seiko were chosen as the official timekeepers for the event, a very prestigious contract to be awarded. The watch was powered by the automatic, 17 jewel, 18,000bph, 6217a calibre which was actually a development of the 603 calibre which first appeared in 1960. The 62xx series of movements powered everything from the World Time to the Grand Seikos of the day. The World Time allows you to determine the time in any one of 24 time zones around the globe with the use of its rotatable inner bezel. Line up a city that’s in your current timezone with the 24 hour hand and you can reference the other timezones using the 24 hour scale. This example came in for a movement service and a bit of work to the bracelet. It’s unusual in a couple of respects, firstly it has the more uncommon brown dial and city ring (these were mostly produced with a sliver dial and city ring), and secondly it’s still on its original bracelet which you very rarely see. It always a pleasure to work on a watch which means a lot to the owner, this was his late fathers watch who bought it brand new back in the sixties.

A quick look at the caseback shows this is a later model from 1967, even so it still has the Olympic torch logo present.

A picture of the movement after the snap on back has been removed. This particular watch had the tightest screws I’ve come across in a long time which caused some problems later on. The two casing ring screws had also been loctited into place and I’m amazed they undid without shearing.

With the movement out you can see the dial is in great condition all be it’s a bit dusty.

With the dial removed you can see the extra 24 hour wheel, the 62mas diver utilised this movement but with no 24 hour wheel used a spacer had to be fitted to fill the gap!

The calendar side was fully stripped.

And disassembly of the motion work side was started.

The watch in its constituent parts.

After cleaning and inspection the rebuild started.

The top balance jewel and spring was lubed and refitted.

The motion work coming together.

As I mentioned earlier the screws had been done up far to tightly and when I went to refit the click spring the retaining screw gave up the ghost and the top sheared off.

This left the threaded portion stuck in the mainplate. This means a screw extractor needs to be used to remove the broken portion.

The tool to use to extract the broken screw is one of these, it has a range of different sized tips to grip different sized screws.

You place the mainplate in between the jaws, screw the tips together so they grip the screw from both ends, then gently rotate the mainplate. The theory is as the screw is clamped and can’t turn it will unscrew itself as the mainplate is rotated.

A minute later and the offending screw is out.

The rebuild continued, here the motion work is ticking away.

The calendar side is ready for the top plate to be fitted.

The dial and hands are fitted and the movement’s recased.

And here she is, a rare bird indeed.

After the pins were dressed flush on the bracelet and a new hinge pin was fitted, it was time for an ultrasonic clean. The water was hot and fresh before it went in!

Dried out it looks a lot better.

And back on the watch even better again.