Hi everybody,
I have a bit of a delicate issue here and would love to hear your opinions...

One of my favourite watches is an Aviator CK2042 from 1939 that I bought quite a few years ago for a fairly reasonable price. The watch is original from A to Z, but has two minor flaws:
the polished case (I can live with that, not much I can do about it anyway) and the condition of the (original) hands that have developed a little appealing rusty patina... a detail that doesn't stop bothering me since I got it.

As I need cash to buy an early Omega 33.3 Chronograph I have been looking for for years, I need to part from the Aviator, but so far all interested parties have withdrawn their interest due to the "ugly" hands.

Although, like many collectors, I love the original condition of my watches, in this only and particular case I am willing to consider a restoration of the hands in order to restore to original beauty of the dial.

However, I would only consider a restoration, if the hands would not look "new" afterwards, but just freed from the rusty stains.

Is there anyone out there who you would like to recommend to carry out this job?

I would be grateful for any recommendations - thank you in advance!
Johannes

 

I'd say that polishing the hands is not a very specialised job. And James Hyman can reapply the lume in any color or texture you want.

 

Is there lume on the dial? Is the lume on the hands original? If everything is completely 100% original, you will get a wide range of opinions on if anything should be done. I would tend to leave that up to the next owner, it shouldn’t be that hard to polish and relume the hands if someone wants to. I’m sure James could do a great job.

 

Johannes,

welcome to OF

The dial is not 100% original (as you described) because it should have lume on the skeleton numbers.

Do you live in MUC btw?

kind regards
Erich

 

Quite normal for the Radium on the numerals to fall off..... Lume on the hands is not radium. Hands are easy to telume. But with no lume on the numerals, I'd scrap the wrong hand lume as well. Total skeleton. And the small seconds hand is wrong. Kind regards. Achim

 

Hi Erich, thank you. Actually I am around for some time and would love to read and participate far more often, but with 4 buggers under 10 at home and an own business to run I simply don't find near as as much time than this brilliant forum deserves.

You are right, my fault - with "all original" I meant that all parts are the original ones - at least this is what two Omega experts that evaluated the watch in 2017 and 2018 had told me. Still they seem to have overlooked the small seconds hand though...
Best, Johannes

PS: yes, Munich it is.

 

Hi Achim, thanks for your valuable insight. Skeleton is a tempting thought as well... although this would not solve the "rust" issue. And: how do you think the small seconds hand should look like?
Best, Johannes

 

I'd keep trying to sell as-is, I think. You could put some money into it to get it to look good, perhap some distilled water might get that crud off, but then a relume of the dial and hands would look great but might affect the value. If that's an emamel dial, it can probably be cleaned as well.

But it might take a while to sell.

 

Erich, one more thing: the colour (corrected, not lume!) fallen off the skeleton numbers also happened to my favourite chrono (NFS, I am afraid), a CK2048.
Here however I would not even think about painting (corrected, not reluming) anything, as it doesn't really harm the beauty of the watch, imho... Best, J.

 

Re lume ? What exactly ? There are no numerals to re lume....non lume hands. And I do not like the printing at all. Pls. Take a better picture to evaluate the dial. That is my favourite Chrono as well. Kind regards. Achim

 

And for the aviator: metal dial in very good condition. Leave as is. Take of both hands. Don't worry about the lume, was replaced before. Buy one of these nail polish files from a department store/Drogerie Markt. They have 4 different sections for filing nails. The last one does not take anything off, it polished only. Secure the existing lume from the back of the hand with waterbased tritium. Let dry for 24 hours. Then without pressure move the front of the hand on that short polishing part of the nail file. In one direction only, from center to tip. No pressure. That takes off the surface rust without damaging the paint. Then you can assess the real damage to the hand frame. If it had "eaten" into the hand metal frame, you decide to leave as is, leave as is with the remainder of the white paint ( preferred action ) of file down to the metal without old paint and repaint with an off white model paint, like Revell ships/Aircraft models. Kind regards. Achim

 

if it were me, I would probably find a few pics of aviator examples with original lume intact, use those as reference, and send the watch to James to have the dial and hands relumed. He can fix the hand rust at the same time.
I don't believe this reduces the value in any way, as there is no original lume present on the watch right now, and anything that James does, can be undone, to get it back to the current condition.
If anything, i think a very well done relume should add value.
But that's just me, I know opinions vary widely..........

 

Haha, I should not write posts that late at night, it seems. I did not want to say LUME but colour - the numerals on the bezel should be black (1-11) and red (12), but you surely know that yourself.

 

Sorry, Achim, unable to take those closer pics so far, but will post them, once I have taken them, hopefully anytime soon.