Nice! Thank you for posting. So, what's the story? Did you find it in the Omega vault in Geneva? The caseback still has its brushed finish and what's that, a purple factory seal?
So here's what I've learned from "my research": Ok, you've got your black model. The hands have that ghost effect like the original Rolex Explorer II Ref# 1655 with a black base and white tips: Then you've got your white dial with the hands reversed: white base and black tips for good contrast and legibility: Then you've got this less common oddball version with a gray dial, the white-tipped hands like I have. The black base looks out of place and the white tips doesn't give much contrast and is hard to read in low-light, especially when the white hands have collected some patina over time. Maybe that's why they made so few of these gray ones?
by the way, do the date models have a quickset date feature or is it old-school? And is that true for both the autos and the manual wound models? I'd love to hash out these kind of details in this thread. I want to make this THE Admiralty thread!
While I await opinions regarding my handset inquiry (above), here's an example that has some pretty obvious incorrectly replaced hands: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Omega-Gene...837770?hash=item3ae0c0d80a:g:OIwAAOSwZ1BXeXGSPurchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network The hands look repainted, including the lume
That's an ambitious price at US$1800... If you want to keep those pictures for posterity, you'll need to put a few in the thread as eBay will lose them later. Cheers, Chris
...it would certainly be easier to read the time. I actually made an offer and never even got a response. And looking closely, those hands look repainted, and mine look old and original, so I'm not sure I'd even want to trade. So then are you guys of the opinion that mine should have the black-tipped hands?...not sure if anyone saw my earlier post on this page regarding dial and hand color variants.
I assume you've looked at the Old Omegas catalogues? Here's a picture of an Admiralty. I didn't immediately see one with a grey dial. All these discussions made me get mine out for the day. Edit: Just realised that my new phone seems to introduce a lot of distortion... Cheers, Chris
Nice...thanks for posting those... It really makes me think there actually is officially a gray-dialed version. Looking at the white diailed examples like Raider 44's...they seem to patina toward yellow and mine is definitely gray. I bet they produced some gray ones with the white-tipped hands and realized the hands didn't look right and pulled the plug, leaving maybe 3 or 4 gray dialed examples in the world...and one of them landed on my wrist!
Back when I was a Ranchero maniac on this Forum, I soon learned which members were the authorities, then later, the same with Railmasters. Is there an "Admiralty expert" here on the OF??
there was another grey dial example posted in the sales forum on this site not too long ago... https://omegaforums.net/threads/red...ref-166-038-caliber-565-quick-set-date.64088/
Yes, but same question applies: is that a patina'ed white dial with the wrong hands or did it come like that from Omega?
Anyway, just left the Admiralty with my watchmaker for some servicing and lets see if he can get a better crown on there... Thank you @Archer for the info regarding the current replacement crown on page 2 of this thread. I wonder if it looks similar?