Vintage Watch | Seiko 45-7001 (45KS) 36000bph Gold Plated

Vintage King Seiko 45-7001: Gold-Plated 45KS, No-Date Hi-Beat, Serviced

Most 45KS you see are steel. This one is not. King Seiko 45-7001 is the gold-plated, no-date sibling of the 45-7000 — same Daini high-beat hand-wound architecture, same first-generation 45KS case, finished in Seiko Gold Plate for the customer who wanted a dress watch that read as jewellery after dark. Fifty-plus years later, that plating is usually the problem. This example still has a relatively good case.

A Different 45KS, On Purpose

King Seiko sat beside Grand Seiko as Seiko’s other flagship: same fight with Swiss chronometry, different badge, often a sharper price. Daini in Kameido built the 45 series as a 36,000 bph manual movement — 10 beats per second — and it is the last King Seiko generation whose high-beat calibres were still finished by hand. After this, machines took more of the line.

Caliber 4500 is the no-date member of that family. 4502 adds the date. 45 Grand Seiko used the same 45-series high-beat idea (4520 / 4522). The observatory story belongs to special contest pieces and to certified 45GS cousins, not to this production 45-7001 — but the beat rate and the regulation culture came out of that same late-1960s push at Neuchâtel and Geneva. What you get here is the wearable version: wind it, no date window to break the silver/gilt symmetry, seconds that glide.

Why Vintage Seiko in Gold Plate in This Condition Matters

SGP cases from this era fail in predictable places: lug tips, crown guards, the high points of the brush. Once the base metal shows, the watch looks tired and the plating cannot honestly be “restored” without looking new in the wrong way. Finding a 45-7001 whose gold skin is still even, with only honest wear rather than islands of brass, is the rare part of this listing. The case is original and in relatively good condition for gold plate — that is the sentence collectors care about. The 45KS medallion on the back is the period signature; keep it.

The case itself is the early 45KS shape: about 36.5 mm, 41.5 mm lug-to-lug, 18 mm lugs, roughly 9 mm thick. Elongated lugs, mixed brush and polish, a wide dress profile that modern wrists still like. It is not the later cushion 7010. It is the slimmer, more architectural 7000-series shell, in gold.

The vintage Seiko 4500 Movement

The 4500 has been serviced and is running as a 36,000 bph hand-wind should: hacking seconds, clean winding feel, no calendar mechanism to baby. That is the practical argument for the no-date 45-7001. Fewer parts. Same high-beat sweep.

Specification

Maker: Seiko 

Model: King Seiko 4502-7001 (45KS)

Era: July 1971

Case Diameter: 36.5 mm

Lug to Lug: 41.5 mm

Lug Width: 18 mm

Case Condition: Original SGP gold-plated case in relatively good condition — plating still even for its age; gold-plated 45KS cases this intact are uncommon. Gold Madellion in perfect condition.

Dial Condition: Perfect white dial — no aging, no patina

Movement: Manual Caliber 4500A, 36,000 bph, hacking; serviced and running well

A vintage gold-plated King Seiko 45-7001 is not a steel 45KS with a different colour. It is the scarce plated no-date 45, and the value is in plating that has not given up. Serviced movement, original case, Kyoto strap of your choice.