On my 21st birthday I had an Omega Seamaster given to me by my uncle. It was given to me in poor condition but I've recently saved enough to have it restored by watchmaker in Canberra, Australia. They've replaced the old face of the watch with the new one, but it's not the same face.

I've been told that Omega in Switzerland is adamant that the new face matches the watch and won't help to identify the part number of the old face. I want to keep the watch as original looking as possible so I'm hoping that someone on this forum could help me to find the correct part number for the old face. If that's possible my watchmaker tells me that he will be able to order it from Omega and I can finish restoring my watch!

Here is a link to a photo of the two faces in case the photo doesn't attach properly: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ndyrsu7la43glzh/IMG-20170719-WA0000.jpg?dl=0

The new face is on the left and the old face is on the right. The only difference between the two seems to be the numbers at six, nine and twelve.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Why did you swap the old face? I see no damage or light damage around 9 o clock.

Both are Omega parts and both appear correct for the watch. Either of those style faces could have come from the factory new.

I'm not 100% sure the actual dial part number can be found at this point.

Your best option is search for dials for your model number on eBay. The model number is inside the caseback of the watch.

 

Thanks Foo2rama. The face was swapped inadvertantly by the watchmaker who didn't compare the two faces before doing the job.

The issue I have is that the case number is 166.002 but omega are saying that the old face wasn't shipped with that watch from the factory. I've done some googling and it seems that some of the 166.001 series watches did come with my old face see: (https://www.poshtime.com/499.037/Omega-Seamaster-166.001-Automatic-c.1963.php) but there are numerous examples of that series with the new face on them too. So I'm really none the wiser about how to track down the face that I want because the case number doesn't have a one-to-one relationship with a face - rather it seems that there is a none-to-many relationship between case numbers and faces (is that true???).

 

Congrats on doing your own research!

Back then a single reference number could have multiple faces even in some cases belong to different "lines"

I'm not an expert on these but many members here should have more info.

Great looking watch and I see your attraction to the original dial both in personal history and looks.

How did you get in touch with Omega and who gave you that info?