# Vintage Sea-Gull St7 Automatic (Mid-Late 1970S / Quite Rare)



## AlbertaTime (Aug 1, 2009)

In the mid-late 1970s, Tianjin Sea-Gull worked very hard to enter the export market with contemporary western styling and state of the art technical quality, producing the ST7 automatic day/date model which contained Sea-Gull's most sophisticated movement until the modern tourbillons--a first class movement with micrometer regulation.

The watch's styling was superficially similar to the Rolex datejust, but Sea-Gull was far from the only watch manufacturer to make a similar model in those days. In any case, the branding is clear and with the Chinese/hanzi day and noticeable "Made in China" this was certainly no attempt at a fake.










Unfortunately, fewer than 3500 of these beauties were ever made because the ST7 failed in the market: the Chinese either couldn't afford it or, if they could, were more interested in the recent influx of cheaper or flashier, and often quartz, watches (this was exactly the same period when China was first re-opening to the west, and western products, after years of isolation--and even the mighty Swiss were seeing their mechanical market thrashed by quartz competition).

Making matter worse, export market customers were not yet aware of the high capacity for quality and technical sophistication of Chinese manufacturers (which is likely the reason the dial states 29 jewels but the movement is actually 28: Sea-Gull probably modified existing 29 jewel ST5 automatic dials for the first ST7 prototype run--which turned out to be the only run produced.)




























This example runs less than three seconds out per day, more than 35 years after it was built and with no known regulating.


----------



## zed4130 (Jun 25, 2009)

I like that, nice looking watch, very wearable :clap: enjoy,

paul


----------



## pg tips (May 16, 2003)

great post, very informative, lovely looking watch


----------



## seemore (Oct 25, 2007)

That is amazingly accurate after all these years but looking at the movement it does shout quality.


----------

