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Question about dial swapping at Grand Seiko service center

1396 Views 14 Replies 7 Participants Last post by  DialDreamer, 
DialDreamer
Hello,

I have a Sbga011 (Snowflake pre Grand Seiko split) so my dial says Seiko on the top half and Grand Seiko on the bottom half. I was thinking about sending my watch to the Grand Seiko service center in Japan for Zaratsu polishing and was wondering if they allow dial swapping to the new Sbga211 Grand Seiko Snowflake dial. Does anybody know?

Response from Grand Seiko below, another email said they haven't seen a zaratsu polishing quote below $1,000. Also the original dial will be returned to you.

Hello,

If you want Zaratsu polishing, your watch would need to be sent to Seiko in Japan. We offer a light polishing at our New Jersey service center. Once they receive and evaluate your watch we will contact you with the cost. We do have a $150.00 shipping fee to send your watch to Japan and back. You can have the new version of the dial on SBGA211 installed in your watch. Your cost for the dial would be $1050.00 plus labor.
Please refer to the below link to our service website for our address and information on how to send your watch to us.

Howtorepair - SeikoServiceCenter


Best Regards,
Grand Seiko Customer Relations
800-334-0962
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BrianBinFL
DialDreamer said:
Hello,

I have a Sbga011 (Snowflake pre Grand Seiko split) so my dial says Seiko on the top half and Grand Seiko on the bottom half. I was thinking about sending my watch to the Grand Seiko service center in Japan for Zaratsu polishing and was wondering if they allow dial swapping to the new Sbga211 Grand Seiko Snowflake dial. Does anybody know?
Click to expand...
I can't provide a link right off the top of my head, but I have seen a first hand account either here or on the GSOC that someone had an SGS dial replaced with a GS dial of the complementary post-2017 model.

In other words, if you want your SBGA011 dial replaced with an SBGA211 dial, they should do it for you.

If you decide to go for it, please keep us apprised of the progress.
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BrianBinFL
That's good news. Now the question is - how badly do you want that post-2017 Snowflake dial? :)
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BrianBinFL
griffon89 said:
If GS allows change of different dial colours then it would be truly amazing.
Click to expand...
My understanding is that you can only swap for the dial from the identical complementary post-2017 model (e.g. SBGA011 -> SBGA211). If your watch doesn't have a post-2017 model then no swap.

This would make sense as this is what would be done if your dial were damaged. If you had an SGS SBGA011 that had a damaged dial, they wouldn't have an old SGS dial laying around to put in it, and they'd have to put the newer GS SBGA211 dial in it. It's still the same watch (Snowflake) just with the updated branding.

But doing something like putting the midnight blue dial of an SBGA375 into the champagne-dialed SBGA373 effectively changes the model of the watch. Now the serial number is for an A373, but it has a midnight blue dial. I don't think GS would do that. But I haven't heard of any first hand accounts from anybody who has tried.
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