Seiko D410-5030 Sign Table

Here’s a watch you don’t see every day — the Seiko D410-5030 Sign Table.

It’s rare on a number of levels, firstly the D410 is much less common than the similar yet simpler D409 which can still be found second-hand reasonably easily.

And this particular D410 — the Sports 100 5030 with white face — is one that you’ll be lucky to ever see. One collector has been looking for the bracelet for this model since 2011!

There’s plenty of functionality in the dual dot-matrix display with 24-hour time and scheduling alarm, contrast adjustment and 1/100 stopwatch.

It’s the memo function that’s it’s most unique feature though, with 20 channels (screens) to input memos and messages using the ‘sign table’ at the bottom of the display.

If you’ve ever put your initials in the high score table of a video game or pinball machine you’ll be right at home writing memos for the D410. Basically you push buttons to select the letter/number/symbol you want and another button to set it, and you move onto the next letter.

You wouldn’t want to write your memoirs on it, and not only because you have limited space, because it takes ages to input anything regardless of how adept you get with the watch buttons, but for a watch made in the early to mid-1980s the level of functionality is pretty cool.