Early 1960s Omega Seamaster ID: Pre-DeVille Hand-Wind

Welcome to OF, Bo, and congrats on your first vintage watch.

It's hard to see the dial well because of compression artifacts (or perhaps AI filtering) in the photos and scratches on the crystal, but my gut feeling is that this is a fully legit early 1960s hand-winding Seamaster. The dial has sustained some damage and it looks to me like someone has attempted to clean it, seeing some loss of the printing and of the lume that I believe would have originally been at the outer ends of the applied markers. The gold hands and dial furniture with the stainless case makes for a stylish design. There is a lengthy thread highlighting such watches, you can add yours to the end.

You are correct that the general style, with the thin straight lugs falls into the "pre DeVille" category, which is just casual terminology, not a technical definition. As an FYI, DeVille was not only a variation of Seamaster (as in the SMDV line), it was also a line of slightly dressier sport watches apart from the Seamaster line. There was a lot of overlap in the Omega catalog in the 60s, between Seamaster, Geneve, and DeVille. The watch probably has a series 600 hand-winding movement and the movement is accessed from the front.

Most reasonably skilled watchmakers will have the tools and knowledge to easily open the watch. However, they may not want to do it just to satisfy your curiosity.

This is a nice starter watch, in that the movement is high quality, but simple - without automatic winding, a date mechanism, etc. Very likely, with a simple service performed by a watchmaker, this 65 year old watch can give you many more decades of reliable timekeeping.

Yeah, that's better, and I can confirm that your watch is totally legit and original. It has just lived a life. If you do choose to have the watch serviced, please have the watchmaker take photos of the movement (including serial number) and the reference number in the back of the case, and you can add them to this thread.

Dial looks reasonably clean. There is some loss in the hands of course, which is unfortunate, but repairable. Crystal is in rough shape too, and the case has seen a heck of a life too.

You're absolutely going to want to get that to a watchmaker for a service ASAP though. I'm guessing it has been a while since it has been serviced.

They can also get you a reference number. It is very difficult to tell just by looking at the dial/case, since Omega themselves had plenty of very similar references, and many dials for each (many of which are undocumented!), so the only real way to tell any info about it is to remove the case back (or remove the movement in cases where the rear of the case doesn't come off). ALL of that is made particularly complex by the fact that in many countries they had a local (non-Omega company) case the watches for tariff/import reasons.

Good result mate 👍.

The strap isn't to my liking, but that's irrelevant isn't it, it's not my watch.

What's your next vintage purchase?

😁

PS: Thanks for getting back to us, so many others just FIFO.

601 movement is the 'basic' 'no frills' movement of what is regarded as Omega's 'bright' times of the 60s/70s. You can see the chart of the various movements based on it here: https://ranfft.org/caliber/8484-Omega-601 (no idea why the automatics were numbered 550/etc, when the 601+ were so similar but...).

Oh, of course! I forgot/didn't re check the photos. Date is 610, 611, or 613.

IIRC, not as many 610s were made and they were replaced by the 611 pretty quickly, and the 613 is harder-to-find (its the quickset date model).

Check out Artisan Straps in Sydney.
https://www.artisanstraps.com/products/natural-horween-chromexcel-leather-strap-padded

Custom made or off the shelf. I have a couple and they're very good.