1970 Seamaster 166 032 Sparkle Dial

Up next and recently acquired for the collection is this 1970 Omega Seamaster 166 032 sparkle dial. I was drawn to this example because of the bronze / tobacco finish in the sparkle, but also the case seemed honest with radial brush and crisp edges along the sides and lugs. I initially paused because I wasn't sure about the black inlays in the hands to match the onyx indices, some earlier examples I had been viewing showed lume present in the end section of the hands, but then I came across a few later examples that had the black painted ends - hopefully correct. Thoughts on those hands and any other comments welcome.

I also noticed that while the crystal includes the Omega symbol the alignment is off, perhaps 80 degrees anti-clockwise with the top hoop pointing towards 9-10 o'clock.

Timegrapher on this one tells me we are a bit overdue for a service. +37 s/d, 221 degrees amplitude, 3.9ms beat error.

Enjoy.

ConElPueblo, Thanks for the compliment. That makes sense, I noticed the tritium lume dots around the dial have darkened too, almost the same dark brown/black shade as the hands, perhaps one notch lighter.

BlackTalon, Thanks as well. Sounds like a co-incidence that my other pickups had the symbol pointing to 12 o'clock. I'm anal enough that I'll probably get the crystal pointing north at service time.

One other thing I'll comment on is the case size. My daily beater is a Rolex SeaDweller 16600 so I'm used to the 40mm diameter, however I wore the Seamaster to dinner last night and it struck me this watch wears nicely on the wrist and, if anything, larger than it's measured 37mm diameter without the crown. For folks getting in to vintage watches that might have concerns about the smaller dial trends you might want to consider one of these as a stepping stone. Now I need to brave a 34.