Alba Quartz Y504

Sometimes, it is easier to guess the date on a watch based on its looks, and today's watch definitely has the look of a vintage watch.

The watch is by the Seiko brand Alba, and is based around the Y504 module. It has a 3 hand dial design with a day and date window at the 3 o'clock position. The face is round woth no numbers on, just the hour markers, and has Alba and Quartz written in silver.

The look of the watch is very reminiscent of the early electronic watches and first quartz watches by Citizen and Seiko (for example the Cosmotron), which suggests a 60s or 70s design. As the Alba brand only started in 1979, this pegs the earliest date for the watch. The serial number on the back suggests it was actually made in 1979, so this is probably one of the earliest Alba watches.

Inside, the quartz movement has the look of an old quartz design, taking up most of the space within the case (-a picture can be seen at the website here). It also uses an AG10 battery, and these larger sized batteries were mainly used in older watches (with most modern basic dial watches using the much smaller AG1 or AG4).

The full model number is Y504-8000. There isn't much information about the watch online, but there seems to be a reasonable number appearing on Japanese auction sites (but very little at non-Japanese sites).