Power Wheels Magazine A Notch Above
Our featured wristwatch in Timepieces for today, Tuesday, September 15, 2026, is our 1977 Seiko Bullhead 6138-0040. For those who don’t know, the Bullhead is a vintage automatic chronograph with the crown and two pushers positioned at the top of the case at the 11, 12, and 1 o’clock positions, thus resembling the head of a bull, hence the name.
The 43 mm stainless steel case is a bit long at 45 mm lug-to-lug, a bit thick at 15mm, and a bit heavy at 108 grams. Housed inside this rather large case is the 23-jewel Seiko Caliber 6138B automatic movement beating at 21,600 beats per hour (BPH). Aside from it self-winding feature, the 6138B movement can also be hand-wound, which makes this wristwatch easy to power up and adjust after it hasn’t been used in a while.
Designed as a “racing driver’s watch“, the Bullhead features an angled wedge-shaped case and a fixed tachymeter bezel, allowing drivers to read the chronograph at a glance without tilting their wrist. As a stopwatch and a chronograph, the Bullhead has a 60-second timer with the yellow second hand and two separate sub dials for a 30-minute counter and a 12-hour recorder.
Our Bullhead came with the chocolate brown/gold dial, white pencil-style hands pointing to white indices, and a day-date display at the 6 o’clock position. Seiko produced other Bullhead variants with “Seiko 5 Sports Speed Timer” on its brown/gold dial, as well as a black/blue version. We like our Bullhead because it looks cleaner without the “Speed Timer” script on its dial.
Seiko Bullhead chronographs were already selling for premium prices when we got ours a couple of years back. Instead of its original fishbone steel bracelet, our Bullhead originally came with a brown leather strap when we first got it. We swapped the leather strap with an aftermarket thick stainless steel bracelet, which came with our 1970 Seiko 5 Actus SS that we featured as our “Seikos in September #7”.
We’re told that the prices of Bullheads currently range from roughly P80,000 to over P160,000 ($1,500–$3,000+ USD) depending on originality, condition, and whether it includes the original fishbone bracelet. We think our Bullhead from March 1977 tops the originality and condition criteria. It’s time to look for an original fishbone bracelet!
Model: Seiko Bullhead
Reference No.: 6138-0040
Month/Year of Manufacture: March 1977
Type: Chronograph
Movement: Automatic and Manual Winding
Caliber: Seiko 6138A
No. of Jewels: 17
Diameter: 43 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Lug-to-lug Length: 45 mm
Lug Width: 20 mm
Weight: 108 grams