A black dialled watch with sub-dials at 3, 6, and 9… Could be a Speedmaster? Or a Daytona? Or any number of copycat derivatives. Not this one, this is the Seiko Chronograph 7A28-7040.

In early 1983, Seiko unveiled the world’s first analogue quartz movement with integrated chronograph function. Up until then, unbelievable as it seems now, if you had a quartz watch with a chronograph it would be a quartz timekeeping circuit with a mechanical chronograph module bolted on top. Before the Seiko Chronograph 7A28-7040, nobody had joined the two things together in one piece.

There are two other major variants on the Seiko Chronograph 7A28-7040 too, the 7A38 which has the addition of a day/date function and the 7A48 which dispenses with the day/date but adds a moon phase (and one model, called Fishing Master, with a tide indicator too). Oh, and for those of us who don’t like reference numbers, a quick rundown – it’s really simple. Seiko watches (apart from very early ones) all have on them somewhere two blocks of four numbers separated by a dash. The first four numbers are the movement, the second four are the style (case/dial/hands variants). All this SLA017SPQ43HYS stuff? I can’t follow it either. Just use the four and four method.

They released a whole range of styles of 7A28 over the ten years of its production life, with a total approaching 50 models before being replaced by the 7T92 in 1992 (a far inferior quality movement in my book). Before we continue, we should agree here that there is Quartz, and there is quartz. The Seiko Chronograph 7A28-7040 is definitely Quartz. A solid movement with steel and brass wheels, metal plates and proper pivots and jewelling. There is a little bit of plastic, but just as protection more than anything, the movement is a workhorse. As opposed to the 7T92 which followed, full of plastic parts with a shorter life.

In the time they were produced there were some truly iconic models: there is the 7A28-7120 RAF Gen 1, which was standard issue to pilots in the late eighties with its fixed spring bars; the 7A28-7040 issued by the South African Air Force; and the famous ‘Ripley’ model, 7A28-7001, with its Ploprof like huge buttons on the side, one of the watches used by Ridley Scott when he made Aliens. For a full run-down I’d recommend a visit to thespringbar.com that has a good guide to them.

The 7A28 was one of the first watches I ever got going again from broken after following threads I found on the internet, so the Seiko Chronograph 7A28-7040 will always hold a special place for me. I have about half a dozen 7Axx watches of various models but will review one of my favourites here, my Seiko Chronograph 7A28-7040. The same model as the SAAF one mentioned earlier, but not an issued version. It wears well on its correct bracelet, with the (slightly loose fitting) endlinks hidden by shrouded lugs.

The Seiko Chronograph 7A28-7040 is a touch under 40mm wide excluding crown and pushers, and 43mm from lug to lug (albeit actually lugless) and stands at 11mm thick. It has a sixty-click bi-directional zero to sixty bezel, useful for timing pasta I suppose. It’s a six-hander, with H/M and chrono sweep seconds on the centre , with running seconds on the 6 subdial, 1/20th second counter on the 3 subdial, and elapsed minutes on the 9.

If you get your hands on any 7Axx movement, the test function built into it is really quite mesmerising. Press the pusher at 4 for about two seconds, and the chrono hands all do a graceful lap of their respective dials. Beautiful to watch, and useful as you will quite often find that one or more of them doesn’t want to join in, pre-warning you about extra repair costs down the line.

The Seiko Chronograph 7A28-7040 is very easy to read, with the reasonably sized white hands showing up well against the black dial, albeit the lume on mine has completely petered out. All in all, the Seiko Chronograph 7A28-7040 is a really good grab and go watch, and you can still pick them up for a song compared to the more ‘illustrious’ brands, whatever that may mean. Just Another Nice Enjoyable Timepiece.