It was a yellow and black box with Diawa 7600 printed on it. I opened the box and inside was a lovely brown fixed spool reel I'd never seen before and it looked like it had never been used. I think this was just before I joined the forum and was starting to take an interest in older fishing tackle. It had an £8 price tag I asked the bloke what his best on it would be and he said " that's been out for the last couple of weeks and no one's shown any interest you can have it for £3 " I thanked him payed him his £3 and walked away very happy. The fact it was old but looked brand new and shiney really appealed to me. You could tell it was well made ,very solid and quite heavy.
This was the reel that started it all off.
Since then I've seen many of the 7000 series reels and two models have become my favourite. The 7300, which came in standard, A,B,H, HA models
And the 7600 ,7600H I do have some of the smaller versions and diawa made larger models like the 7700 which is a lovely reel and has a unique side plate design.
I'm no expert in these reels but just took and interest one day and it went from there. I've only found snippets of information while searching the web on these classic reels.
http://www.traditionalfisherman.com/vie ... 49#p319422
I get a fair bit of stick from my mates about my little collection but I care not. I believe they are very underrated reels and to me they look stunning. They were built to last and the clutches are so smooth and make a fantastic sound when a large fish is ripping line from them!. I don't use fixed spools much these days but when I do it will be more than likely I'll be using one of these. I haven't been able to find out exactly where in Japan or Korea these were made or what years the slight differences in shape or models were made. Some have black spools and handles and some have a dark maroon colour. I did however hear a rumour about the golden H models. Such is there elegance and beauty Mr Yoshio Matsui the founder of diawa hand picked the best samurai sword makers he could find and travelled up Mount Akita Komagatake shortly after its eruption in 1971 and forged them in the molten lava. But that was whispered to me by a Chinese chap
It was only today that I found out exactly what I had much to mine and the wife's surprise!
Any offers on a job lot please p.m me
I would look at servicing it to get rid of some of its minor niggles. That was about 5 years ago....still waiting 
all though your only halfway there 