Hi all,

I found 60ies 18K Seamaster Deville on with honeycomb dial on ebay, which seems to be in good condition and all. But looking at the picture of the back case it says "MADE IN ENGLAND"... I heard that some parts for some omegas were made in the US for period of time (Although not 100% sure) but I never heard of any of them being made in England. Anybody seen this before?

More pictures on ebay
http://www.ebay.com/itm/222317164511?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:ITPurchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network

 

It's fine, it's a normal British-made 18ct Dennison watch case. The watch looks pretty nice to me. These 18ct watches quite often turn up in near-mint condition, I suppose because people were more conscious of their value and so took better care of them.

 

Due to the duty charged on imports of gold into Britain (and the USA I think) in the first half of the 20th Century, it made a lot more sense for Swiss watch companies to import movements into the UK and get them cased up in gold locally. A L Dennison is one such case maker and did some nice work. You will find plenty of Omega, Rolex and other makes in ALD cases. You can argue that part of the watch isn't original Swiss but they still make for nice pieces. In the pic below, the one on the right is from 1949 and is in a ALD 9K case with 260 movement. The main downside is that you lose the model number which Omega would have stamped into the caseback. I have no idea what model mine is so if anyone would like to hazard a guess I would be grateful.

 

Thanks

And really nice bonus info with ALD!
It makes so much more sense that they would produced parts in other countries with lower import duty. I agree that one could say that its not pure Swiss but to me its still part of Omega history and thus original.

Im far from an expert but it looks like a mid-50ies sub second. There is a local store in DK that has a couple of them, but the triangle dials look a little different.

http://www.wristchronology.com/køb-vintage-ur/vintage-watches/omega/

 

What a great website! Thanks for the link. The year isn't in question since the movement number and hallmark show that it is a 1949 model but I haven't seen exactly this dial before, though to be fair mine has seen better days and has rather a lot of what is kindly called patina.

 

Yes its pretty distinctive. There's a fine line between wear and patina but to be honest yours looks more like patina.

You may also like this one.
http://m.krognos.dk/ure-til-salg

Its all in danish but should be understandable. Otherwise let me know and ill help out with the translation.

 

I am a bit of a Dennison devotee, in fact I am wearing an 18K pie pan Dennison Deluxe on my wrist right now. You might find our very own Andrew Romains essay on Dennison useful

http://omega-constellation-collecto...01/from-advent-of-bretton-woods-monetary.html

As others have said they are great and very well made cases, Dennison had a very close relationship (including some real conflicts of interest) from the early part of the 20th century until their demise in the late 1960's. I too am watching this watch, partially because its in exemplary condition and partly because its 18K and only about 10% of Dennisons production was 18K watches, most were 9K

It looks like an excellent example and what I would say is that he quality of Dennison cases is outstanding, although their 'current' designs were mostly based on slightly older Omega designs (at the time of manufacture) the quality of the cases was amazing, most likely (as Andrew eludes to in his Essay) because they were pretty much hand made.

Although as Padders has eluded to there is an issue regarding the model number, Andrew has quite an extensive archive of Dennison numbers and as you will see from reading his essay there is a logical process in terms of how they were categorised and numbered.

There are a number of camps on Dennison watches but no one can question that the quality of the 9K and 18K models was second to non and you have the benefit of knowing that they had exemplary swiss made movements with (in many cases) hand made English craftsmanship in regards to the cases.

There are my two Dennison Constellation 18K Deluxe's

 

Brilliant thanks, there are some lovely pieces on there. I must confess my Danish is a little sub par but luckily Google Chrome translates webpages like this pretty well.

 

Thanks for the insights on Dennison. Sounds very interesting and I always enjoy when there's a story behind a watch. The specimen on ebay looks very fine indeed, except for the glass which has som escratches on it, but that should be possible to fix.

 

You're welcome. Its supposed to be one of the best shops in DK for vintage watches and yes they do absolutely have some quite lovely pieces there.

 

No problem, it's a good looking watch in excellent condition, it won't go mega because it's not a Connie and it's a front loader so you should be able to get a good buy!

The crystal is hesalite so invest in some polywatch whilst your bidding and that crystal will come back like new with ten minutes elbow grease!

Good hunting!

 

Thanks! Definitely will look for some polywatch if I end up bidding on it. Have an appointment to look at aspecimen from 1962 with crosshair dial tomorrow that I might go for instead, but lets see

 

Arron Lufkin Dennison was one of the original founders and mechanical designers behind American Waltham. He didn't play nice with others and ended up out on his own to found, among other things, Dennison watch case in England.

Sort of like Henry Ford loosing his first company because he didn't play well with bankers (he'd much rather have gone racing) out he went and they changed the company name to Cadillac