1972 Omega De Ville

In 1972 I purchased a new Omega De Ville from an Omega dealer in Manchester. The model I bought was different from any other that I had seen before. When I mentioned this to they sales assistant, he said that the face had been a special order made via Omega with the face being a chocolate brown with a faint sprinkling of gold dust, hopefully as can be seen from the photograph. Has anybody else heard of such a thing. This not a fake, it was sold to me by a reputable Omega dealer and it has been serviced by Omega without a comment.

Omega had some great dress DeVille watches in the seventies and later, I own a couple myself.

I would strongly suspect that yours started out life with a black dial and then faded and the gold colour you now seeing peeking out is the brass dial plate starting to show. This is consistent with a number of vintage black dials, have a look at this fifties Omega I listed for sale here a while ago:

https://omegaforums.net/threads/1954-black-dial-omega-2639-14.79506/

Omega did do some special dials in that time, but they would be in semi-precious stone and such.

Thank you for your responses. I do wish to confirm though, the watch face is as it was when I purchased it in 1972.

I suggest the answer is, "we are unable to confirm or deny." If it was a special order, perhaps writing Omega could tell you without spending money but I suppose "buy an extract of the archives and find out!" will be the answer.

Similar effect on one I have. This is wear and patina, but in an interesting way. The photo unfortunately is not very good; this one looks way better in person.

My feeling is that this is not an Omega factory dial. From the photo provided, the font of Omega seems poorly executed.

I am endeavouring to get a better photograph of the watch face, which hopefully should available in the next few days.

I note the advise regarding writing to Omega. I think that is a good course of action and will do that when I have a better photograph of the watch face.

With regards to the case number, surely that is only known upon opening the case, as there is no markings of any form externally.

Shame no one buys modern DeVille Dress watches

How modern is modern?

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I have added a more detailed photograph, which shows the true make-up of the face, which as can be seen that it is a dark brown with a sprinkling of gold dust. It is just the same as when I bought it new in 1972. It has not faded at all in the past 49 years.

I can see the key to finding out more about my watch is to locate the reference number in the case back and taking it up with Omega. I assume initially this will involve going to a jewellers that specialises in watches and asking them to open the case and finding the number.

IWith regards to Dan’s query, I am assuming it is an Omega De Ville. At the time of purchase, September 1972, I had looked at all the Omega watches that were available, and had the determined the one that I wanted was an Omega De Ville identical to the one I eventually bought, but with a white face. I saw this watch in the window of Collingwoods, a jewellers on Market Street in Manchester, and went in and bought it. I discussed the watch with the sales assistant who informed me that it was the Omega De Ville that I had been considering, but the watch had been an order made to Omega with the special face in line with a customer’s requirements, as can be seen in the photographs above. The person, who had initially ordered the watch that I had bought, for some reason did not buy it. I had no reason to disbelieve him. Collingwoods was a well established jewellers at the time with branches in other parts of the country.