Many months ago I was chatting with one of my work colleagues about vintage watches (he owns a rather nice Rolex 1680 Sub Date..from new) and after the usual “Omega vs best watch in the world” debate he mentioned that his mother (sadly departed) had an Omega. Apparently it was a Seamaster but his descriptions didn’t really help me to visualise it and he did not possess any of the original papers. So I suggested that he bring it to work one day and I would take a look and try to identify it. Time passed. I reminded him a few times that he should bring the watch in and more time passed as we both forgot about it, until today that is. It probably won’t surprise many of the guys here that I was not exactly burning with curiosity; after all (I thought) we would be looking at some sort of white gold microscopic thing with little or no chance of unambiguous identification….I was wrong! The watch in question was lurking in a little brown pouch that my colleague uses to keep his pipe in. When I opened it, what came out was, well, let me digress for a moment. Some of you may know that I am a fan of the so-called Seamaster Sparkle dials from the late 1960s. I have a rather nice 18K solid gold BA166.022 Date and an equally nice ST168.023 Day-Date. So you can perhaps imagine my surprise, after fishing my colleague’s watch out of the baccy bag, to find what looked to all intents and purposes like a shrunk-in-the wash mix of my two Seamasters…and here it is:- I wish my Seamasters had cases this sharp..without having ever been re-cut or polished. It’s maybe a bit hard to grasp the size of this Seamaster so here are some context photos. And a big brother, little sister shot:- I have tried many times to capture the way my Seamaster dial sparkles, without success. What you see on the right is what I normally see live on the left. So, back to business; I’m supposed to be identifying this little beauty. Since I don’t have the necessary tools to open her up, nor would I want to, I shall have to go on observations and research, the latter being a little harder than expected as there isn’t too much online covering women’s watches and less on this one in particular. What I think I am looking at:- After a quick look through the Omega Watches website Vintage section I found https://www.omegawatches.com/de/watch-omega-seamaster-omega-st-566-0013 ..which seems to be a pretty good fit. Model: Omega Seamaster ST 766.0013. There are no hallmarks or OM on the dial and I believe it was delivered with the bracelet, hence the “7” rather than a “5” at the start of the model reference. So this makes it a “Steel, Lady’s bracelet watch, self-winding centre seconds, water resistant calendar Seamaster. I estimate the year of manufacture to be circa 1968 and would therefore expect a serial number for the movement (if there is one?) in the range 25,000,000-27,000,000. The movement should be a calibre 681 automatic. The mid-case (5660024 or 5660013 I’m not sure if there is a difference) is 25.4mm diameter excl. crown, has even patina and no signs of having ever been re-cut or polished. The dial is a beautiful silver sparkle with applied metal vintage Omega logo at the top and “–T Swiss Made T-“ at the bottom, so Tritium lumed hands and points at the end of each hour marker baton. The lume points glow for a second or so under strong UV, but not longer. The black inlay in the hour markers is absolutely perfect; no signs of flaking or gaps, whatsoever. All three hands look to be original, but the hour hand has lost most of its lume. The crystal is signed with a very faint logo, but it appears to have the modern form, which is consistent with the modern logo on the crown, so the watch has been serviced at some point in its life…I’m not sure when the logo shape changed…any ideas? The bezel still as signs of the original brushed sunburst pattern, but most has been worn away with time. The watch head is mounted on a stainless steel bracelet type 5726 with 546 end-links and shows a lot of “stretch” but the same even patina as on the watch head, suggesting these two have been together for most of the watch’s life. The only thing that detracts from an overall pretty picture are a couple of scratches across the case back …we know how that happens. If this were mine (my mother’s watch) I would either leave well alone and just take it out of a suitably attractive box from time to time to remind me of my mother (sorry Mum I know you are not gone yet and long may it stay that way) or have it serviced and pass it on to my daughter. My colleague seemed a little unsure however and was even toying with the idea of selling it. I can’t really imagine doing that. The best I can do is try to be factually accurate and hope that he decides to keep this pretty little Omega. If any of you fine OF folks have any more info on this model, comments or corrections, or better still your own examples to show…fire away. I wish you all a pleasant and relaxing evening. P.S. just in case you were wondering, this isn’t a sales pitch; I just found the surprising similarity with my Seamaster interesting and hope that this little post distracts a few of you from the flood of Butt-ugly vs Buzz-Butt, Franklin-Mint-esque, Manking posts that we have had to endure of late.