Greetings all, I'm just getting in to collecting watches. I have this moonwatch but the hands are so very white compared to the aged face. Do you think they are new or painted, or could they be original?

Thanks!

 

Since the dial is tritium, you can leave it in the sun for a couple minutes and then hit the dark. If the hands are glowing like crazy, you'll know that they're service replacements.

Tom

 

Thank you Tom. I held it under a lamp for 30 seconds or so and went into a dark room - the hands were very bright compared to the dial.

I just bought this, should I be irritated or are serviced hands pretty normal. I was told that the bezel and hesalite were original but now that I re-read the ad there was nothing about the hands.

What's your take on the bezel (if you have one), new or original? The engraving on the back of the watch is also still black, so I'm wondering what the contradiction is - if the writing is still black ('first watch...') then perhaps the watch wasn't worn very often, but then why did the hand needs replacement?

Also it came with a service receipt that is in Galician and appears to speak of scratched crystal but the watch seems in excellent condition to me.

 

Aside from the lack of accent on "tachymètre" on your bezel, it matches my circa 1998 service bezel.

If you're just going to wear the watch and don't care about the collectability, I would replace the dial to match the hands.

Tom

 

If you are not 100% pleased with the watch, given the Hesalite crystal and sapphire back, you would have no trouble selling that Speedmaster.

 

The lume on the hands suggests they have been replaced.

 

Definitely service hands, which is a shame given the creamy patina the tritium markers have acquired.
However, service hands are pretty normal, as I've heard that some less careful watchmakers can break the hands when removing them from the posts during service. I'm not really sure what recourse you have, since presumably the condition of the piece and the color difference between the hands and markers were fully disclosed via pictures that accompanied the ad.
Sorry to hear that you're in any way dissatisfied, and I hope for the best in whatever route you take.

 

Yes you're exactly correct, I love the patina of the tritium and I find the hands a bit jarring in their glorious whiteness. However, the rest of the watch to the best of my meager abilities appears to be in very nice shape (case still angular, different finishes on the sides/tops are easily distinguishable, case # matches movement, omega sign on hesalite, movement appears correct as far as i can tell through the display back), so I think I'll try to consider the hands as part of the deal of getting the rest of the watch as it appears to be (and to Tom I've found a post where the owner believes his 1995 3592 to be original, and that bezel also didn't have an accent over the E).

Thanks everyone for your input! Omega sort of 'plain' beauty is so my style.

 

Mine is definitely not original. I had the modern hands and bezel put on the "57 Replica". So that bezel is whatever the watchmaker sourced.

Tom

 

Thanks

Thanks for all of your input, Tom.

Doug

 

Just to clarify a bit about chronograph hands and the problems that sometimes happen with them...

Hands for the actual chronograph functions are subject to very large forces when the chronograph is reset. This requires the hand to be on the post very tightly so that they do not move, and new hands are usually very tight indeed. This video (not mine) shows the hands resetting in slow motion, and you can see that they whip quite a lot:

Sometimes when removing hands, the tube portion of the hand is so tight on the post that the hand actually comes apart, so the tube is left on the post, the rivet fails, and the flat part of the hand is only removed. There are ways of mitigating this risk, for example making sure you grip the tube with your hand levers, rather than just lifting under the flat part of the hand. But sometimes hands are either too close to the dial or too close to another hand to get the tools in under far enough to remove them by gripping the post.

Some hands are just put on ridiculously tight. This is a screen capture from a Breitling service video showing the technician actually using a hammer and hand setting tool to hit the central chrono hand and seat it on the post:


First, this is totally unnecessary (just using a normal hand press is enough) and second it makes removing this hand without damaging it pretty much impossible. Since they do not sell parts, this is one reason why I refuse Breitling chronographs and only service their non-chrono watches.

Getting back to Omega, on a vintage Speedmaster I rarely have issues with hands being on really tight. They have usually been removed and replaced enough that they are generally a bit looser than when brand new. On a watch that comes to me for it's first service, this can be more of a problem, and also the type of hand can make a difference. The polished hands I find tend to be tighter that the white painted hands for example. But the most common hand that I have fail on a Speedmaster Pro is the minute counter hand - it just seems to be the tightest of the chronograph hands.

So certainly it can be a careless watchmaker not doing what they can to remove hands without damage, but sometimes there's not much you can do, so risk of hand failure is always present I would say, in particular on a newer watch.

Note that this is not the only way these hands fail. For example the rivet can come loose so the tube is tight on the post but the hand still flops around - this is something that can be repaired sometimes but other times not. Also, the tube itself can become so stretched that it won't stay put - again this can be tightened but sometimes this works and sometimes not. You can be sure that if the factory does the work and the hands are not 100% right, they won't even attempt to fix them - they just go to a drawer and pull out another set.

Cheers, Al

 

Jeez, we'll said Al. [emoji106]

 

thank you Al! great post.