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OmegaMale
·I’ve just had a wonderful time going about restoring my grandfather’s old Omega Triple Date Moonphase ref. 2471/1 and I’d like to share some pictures here as well as some notes on the experience.
I’ve always had an interest in watches since I was a boy and my grandmother must have picked up on this because around the time I was a teenager in Toronto, Canada she gave me Grandpa’s old Omega watch. I wasn’t aware of the watch until she handed it to me as he had passed before I was born. I was always flattered and honored that the watch ended up in my hands and I think Grandma knew it had gone to a good home. I kept the watch in various bedside drawers for the last 25 years and would take it out to admire it from time to time. I never once dared to wind it though for fear of breaking it and I always intended to have it serviced and brought back to life.
I remarked to my mother once that Grandpa must have had very small wrists because I could see from rust marks on the nylon strap indicating which hole was used, that whoever wore it last was not a large person. She told me she remembered Grandma wearing the watch after Grandpa’s passing and so that explained that. She also told me that while Grandpa was a commanding presence he didn’t have the same physical stature as myself and that he wasn’t a tall man. I never would have learned this if it weren’t for the rust markings on that cheap little nylon strap Grandma put on Grandpa’s old watch.
I never got around to fixing the watch until recently when I went to the official Omega service center in Shanghai and had them service the watch. Depending on how long it had been since my Grandmother had worn the watch it had been no less than 25 years since the watch had ticked. Funnily enough I simply took the watch home and placed it back on the shelf after wearing it for a few hours. I continued to admire it whenever I walked past it but I never wound it again. In retrospect I realize I was still needlessly nervous and that the watch was much better suited to occasional use and so a couple of weeks ago I started winding it daily and using it in my watch rotation. That lead me to head down the rabbit hole of determining the history and origin of the watch.
It did not take much digging to determine I was in possession of an Omega Triple Date Moonphase. A quick image search on Chrono24 revealed as much. According to various sources the earliest models were released in either 1946 or 1947 and ran up to some time in the early to mid 1950s depending on who you ask.
I’m sure I had puzzled over the extremely sparse and simple design of the dial at times. It struck my as bizarrely simplified and I never really understood how it could have appealed to my Grandfather to prompt him to purchase it. The dial is also remarkably pristine which I couldn’t really understand. What I learned now of course is that this is not the original dial but a redial. The Cosmic Triples of the time feature gasketless casebacks and are thus prone to water ingress so there are few examples of the watch that feature undamaged dials. Grandpa’s watch is no exception and at some point he must have had the new dial put in. I wonder if he was disappointed at the new dial? It features a generic font on the numerals and no embossing. The dial is entirely printed and whatever aesthetic embellishments existed on the original dial are now gone. For a collector this surely would negatively impact the value of the watch but from my perspective it’s a neat detail. The redials in general are not up to the snuff of the original dials in all cases but this dial is the most egregious redial I’ve come across. It seems that no aesthetic effort has been made in constructing it which gives it a rather unique feel. Also it is actually unique as far as I can tell because I haven’t found a single other exact example of this particular dial.
I neglected to get information on the movement reference while I had the watch repaired and so today while I was having a black crocodile skin band put on it I had the young watch repairman open the back up so I could inspect the case back and get some pictures. He could see I wasn’t getting good pictures with my phone and handed me his loupe instructing me to hold it over the lens of my camera phone. You can see the results
Before fixing the watch I would chat about it from time to time with my mother. She remembered Grandpa wearing it every day. He would wind it every morning and though the kids longed to wind his watch they were never allowed to do so. My mom figured it was not an expensive watch at the time because she didn’t think her father would spend money on a luxury item like that and even though I only became familiar with Omega watches in later years I was always somewhat sure that the watch must have been very high end when Grandpa bought it. That turned out very much to be the case as a little research showed that the watch was probably around USD$480 in 1950 at a time when the average household annual income was $3,300. Therefore the watch was approximately equivalent to two months of income for the average household. This was not a watch you could expect to see on the wrist of a school teacher or a blue collar worker at the time. The average price today of an Omega is similarly equivalent to about two months income of the average household in America. I explained to my mother that the watch was not something the average man in 1950 could have owned and that Grandpa (not a material or arrogant man) almost certainly derived a small pleasure at being able to have such a luxury. He was a moderately successful businessman and left my Grandmother very well off into her retirement.
The watch ticks rather loudly compared to modern watches and so I was sitting in my office at some point last week and during a quiet moment of reflection I slowly became aware of the ticking of the watch. I looked down and couldn’t help but marvel at the fact that Grandpa almost certainly had the exact same experience while he wore the watch over 50-70 years ago. A quiet moment in the study after putting the newspaper down, glancing down at the watch to check the time and that small flicker of satisfaction you get from owning a watch you truly love.
I’m assuming that he got the watch in 1950 and so in 2050 I will hand the watch over to the oldest male heir of my family name (I myself am childless otherwise it would go to my son). One day that man will similarly find himself becoming aware of the ticking of the watch on his wrist and he too will marvel at it’s history.
Unanswered Questions:
• There are no serial numbers by the crown wheel as on other movements I’ve seen online. What’s a possible explanation for this?
• I’ve seen mention of specific ‘caliber’ in addition to the movement reference numbers associated with the Triple Date. What does that mean and how is it determined?
• Is there any way to determine the pedigree of the redial?
• Is there a repository of vintage Omega advertisements? If not does anyone have insight into which magazines were most likely to carry Omega advertisements from the years 1946-1955.
•Based on the reference 2471/1 how accurately can we determine the specific year of this particular watch?
I’ve always had an interest in watches since I was a boy and my grandmother must have picked up on this because around the time I was a teenager in Toronto, Canada she gave me Grandpa’s old Omega watch. I wasn’t aware of the watch until she handed it to me as he had passed before I was born. I was always flattered and honored that the watch ended up in my hands and I think Grandma knew it had gone to a good home. I kept the watch in various bedside drawers for the last 25 years and would take it out to admire it from time to time. I never once dared to wind it though for fear of breaking it and I always intended to have it serviced and brought back to life.
I remarked to my mother once that Grandpa must have had very small wrists because I could see from rust marks on the nylon strap indicating which hole was used, that whoever wore it last was not a large person. She told me she remembered Grandma wearing the watch after Grandpa’s passing and so that explained that. She also told me that while Grandpa was a commanding presence he didn’t have the same physical stature as myself and that he wasn’t a tall man. I never would have learned this if it weren’t for the rust markings on that cheap little nylon strap Grandma put on Grandpa’s old watch.
I never got around to fixing the watch until recently when I went to the official Omega service center in Shanghai and had them service the watch. Depending on how long it had been since my Grandmother had worn the watch it had been no less than 25 years since the watch had ticked. Funnily enough I simply took the watch home and placed it back on the shelf after wearing it for a few hours. I continued to admire it whenever I walked past it but I never wound it again. In retrospect I realize I was still needlessly nervous and that the watch was much better suited to occasional use and so a couple of weeks ago I started winding it daily and using it in my watch rotation. That lead me to head down the rabbit hole of determining the history and origin of the watch.
It did not take much digging to determine I was in possession of an Omega Triple Date Moonphase. A quick image search on Chrono24 revealed as much. According to various sources the earliest models were released in either 1946 or 1947 and ran up to some time in the early to mid 1950s depending on who you ask.
I’m sure I had puzzled over the extremely sparse and simple design of the dial at times. It struck my as bizarrely simplified and I never really understood how it could have appealed to my Grandfather to prompt him to purchase it. The dial is also remarkably pristine which I couldn’t really understand. What I learned now of course is that this is not the original dial but a redial. The Cosmic Triples of the time feature gasketless casebacks and are thus prone to water ingress so there are few examples of the watch that feature undamaged dials. Grandpa’s watch is no exception and at some point he must have had the new dial put in. I wonder if he was disappointed at the new dial? It features a generic font on the numerals and no embossing. The dial is entirely printed and whatever aesthetic embellishments existed on the original dial are now gone. For a collector this surely would negatively impact the value of the watch but from my perspective it’s a neat detail. The redials in general are not up to the snuff of the original dials in all cases but this dial is the most egregious redial I’ve come across. It seems that no aesthetic effort has been made in constructing it which gives it a rather unique feel. Also it is actually unique as far as I can tell because I haven’t found a single other exact example of this particular dial.
I neglected to get information on the movement reference while I had the watch repaired and so today while I was having a black crocodile skin band put on it I had the young watch repairman open the back up so I could inspect the case back and get some pictures. He could see I wasn’t getting good pictures with my phone and handed me his loupe instructing me to hold it over the lens of my camera phone. You can see the results
Before fixing the watch I would chat about it from time to time with my mother. She remembered Grandpa wearing it every day. He would wind it every morning and though the kids longed to wind his watch they were never allowed to do so. My mom figured it was not an expensive watch at the time because she didn’t think her father would spend money on a luxury item like that and even though I only became familiar with Omega watches in later years I was always somewhat sure that the watch must have been very high end when Grandpa bought it. That turned out very much to be the case as a little research showed that the watch was probably around USD$480 in 1950 at a time when the average household annual income was $3,300. Therefore the watch was approximately equivalent to two months of income for the average household. This was not a watch you could expect to see on the wrist of a school teacher or a blue collar worker at the time. The average price today of an Omega is similarly equivalent to about two months income of the average household in America. I explained to my mother that the watch was not something the average man in 1950 could have owned and that Grandpa (not a material or arrogant man) almost certainly derived a small pleasure at being able to have such a luxury. He was a moderately successful businessman and left my Grandmother very well off into her retirement.
The watch ticks rather loudly compared to modern watches and so I was sitting in my office at some point last week and during a quiet moment of reflection I slowly became aware of the ticking of the watch. I looked down and couldn’t help but marvel at the fact that Grandpa almost certainly had the exact same experience while he wore the watch over 50-70 years ago. A quiet moment in the study after putting the newspaper down, glancing down at the watch to check the time and that small flicker of satisfaction you get from owning a watch you truly love.
I’m assuming that he got the watch in 1950 and so in 2050 I will hand the watch over to the oldest male heir of my family name (I myself am childless otherwise it would go to my son). One day that man will similarly find himself becoming aware of the ticking of the watch on his wrist and he too will marvel at it’s history.
Unanswered Questions:
• There are no serial numbers by the crown wheel as on other movements I’ve seen online. What’s a possible explanation for this?
• I’ve seen mention of specific ‘caliber’ in addition to the movement reference numbers associated with the Triple Date. What does that mean and how is it determined?
• Is there any way to determine the pedigree of the redial?
• Is there a repository of vintage Omega advertisements? If not does anyone have insight into which magazines were most likely to carry Omega advertisements from the years 1946-1955.
•Based on the reference 2471/1 how accurately can we determine the specific year of this particular watch?
