Hi, I bought this yesterday evening on an auction. Its a 1950's Omega Seamaster Calendar 353 Honeycomb Dial Square Date Window. I know nothing about Seamasters and I only bought it because I loved the look of it. I have read up on these overnight and I would love to know what year this watch is from. I would also love to hear anything else anyone may know about these early Seamasters.
No the database often just shows one case material, there can be others. It’ll be from 1952-54, the movement serial will tell you more. It will likely be 13-14m.
Excellent, thanks! I hink I overpaid for this, what is the going rate on one of these? I paid $745USD I just couldnt say no once I saw that waffle dial.
For sure it depends on conditions (how's movement? was it recently serviced or not?) but this example looks nice and original to me and I don't think you overpaid.
The waffle dial seamasters date at six are common among Vintage Omega collectors. Everyone should own one or two.
You two are really annoying with your black waffles! But agreed, every Omega collector should have one, very affordable and very attractive too
Here's a '51 saying hi: $745 is around £600 .... Hmm. You didn't get the best deal but I wouldn't be upset at that. The price point on these all comes down to condition. Dial, case, hands, crown ... there are very good ones out there but I've seen them in a retail setting asking £1850 and that one was not as good as the examples shown here. Get it in for service and see what sort of shape the mechanicals are in. From memory, I think I paid around £750 for the one here but she then had a lot sunk into her on service ... took some begging to get the parts too.
Ok its here, serial is 13244229 which is 1952. The movement looks just amazing, god omega make such lovely movements. What do you guys think about the rest of it?
You've got a lot of errant lume. It's radium. Get it cleaned up by a pro. Don't be tempted to mess around with that stuff by yourself. As an aside, I've found a new watchmaker, young chap, who surprised me by refusing to work on anything that was even suspected of having radium on it. I wouldn't ask anyone to do something they were uncomfortable with and assume he doesn't have the facilities to make it safe. It might even just be storage and disposal in this day and age. Anyway, back to your watch: the first thing I saw that made me stop was the rotor weight: please tell me that's the one lighting and it's not got a crack in it? Also, look at the inside of the case back. Is there any scoring or marks that could come from the rotor rubbing? The top of the rotor in your image looks dirty and not as crisp as it should - could be the bearing is worn. All told, she's an honest watch. She'll clean up well but there's going to be a bit of money to be spent. That brings us to price and, well, I think we all just have to accept that this is where they are now.
Thanks for the feedback, its beautiful in person. The movement looks ok, I dont see a crack, so its probably just the camera on my crappy samsung. There is on a single engraving on the case back from a watch maker. So I have no doubt there will be some surprises under the hood. When you said thats where they are now, what are you thoughts of dollar value? I want to understand how much wiggle room I have for a service.
Finger in the air time. If you saw yo watch, cleaned up and on a nice new strap, fully service, with a warranty in a shop window .... What would you be happy paying for it? The difference between what you have paid and that number is your "wiggle room" . The one I pictured above, I'd sell for ... £1000-1100.if that helps. Now, whether someone is prepared to pay that is another question.
Errant as in missing ... look at the indices - lots of vacant lume slots. Odds are at least some of it is still floating around in there.