Have I bought a turkey of a vintage Seamaster?!

bgrisso

yes, all this good advice above, OR........................
knowing it’s a redial will eat away at your soul, destroying the very fabric of your existence.
Just depends on what kind of person you are 😉

Franco

Giving as a fact that you have it and enjoy it, may I suggest that before buying next watch , make sure that you or somebody here has the knowledge to buy a nice example - original, not redialled, correct crown and hands etc

Spruce

Personally, and I appreciate that by saying what I’m about to say I may be drummed out of OF, but if I’d bought it, I’d probably keep it and wear it but, as others have said, if you felt moved to ask your original question and don’t like the answer, you can’t very well un-ask it.

If you decide to sell it, you might still get it your money back but get it serviced and the crown changed, get your servicer to let you have photos of the inside case back and movement and then auction it on eBay, mentioning the service and being circumspect in your description of the watch - letting very sharp and clear photos do the talking.

JwRosenthal

If you spend some time reading around here you will realize that original black dialed Seamasters are very rare, and when they do pop up- there will be a flurry of bidding activity- and they won’t go cheaply. Lots of redials and strait up fantasy fakes out there, so best to train your eyes on what real ones look like.

JamesV

Sound advice my friend. I think I will at some point sell it and upgrade but I will keep the strap.

Lucasssssss

For what it is worth, the strap is uncommon, the Swiss version of these "Milanese" straps are worth in the region of £300, so you might not be as far in the red as you first thought.

DON

If the auction is still up and inside of caseback is shown. Get the reference number. A search will show you what the dial should look like.

Hands as mentioned are wrong as is crown. Sweep may be OK if silver. Hard to tell. Minute and hour wrong. Replacing may be a problem. If the dial refinisher didn't use the right placement of the minute markers. Genuine hands for this model might not reach the markers (may fall short like the current minute hand).

Can always use Generic hands

I'm not in the UK and only know of one watchmaker, but have never used him. Simon Freese

Wouldn't worry about the refinished dial. World hasn't ended nor hell frozen over. Just a dial

DON

Walrus

It was an honorable attempt. There is a thread here called something like “is this a redial” or something to that effect. It helped me immensely. When I see a black dial outside of a few reputable places I just start with the assumption that it is a redial, and tbh I’ve only seen one at a local shop and one for sale by a local seller, they were both redials. I was fortunate that they were very poorly done as I’ve never personally owned a black dial seamaster so my familiarity with them is strictly through images. I definitely see the attraction they are a great looking watch. The amount you paid is what you paid I won’t say it’s an insignificant amount of money and although it probably won’t bring you much comfort at least you aren’t among the ranks of those who paid much more for Franken Rolex or higher level omega etc. sometimes you buy these things and it’s not even the seller that is trying to pull a fast one. Sometimes people grab stuff seeing they can make a couple hundred and aren’t knowledgeable about it themselves. Not all redials were done with bad intent sometimes people got there 30,40,50s etc watches redialed back in the day to make it “look better or whatever” but there is no doubt there is a thriving scam industry for watches out there.

It’s really quite a bummer. But it goes on in pretty much anything where money can be made. Art, wine, cigars shoot the list will go on forever. We even had bootleg face masks make their way through our work site. I haven’t bought a redial yet only because the ones I ran across were so bad it looked like they were done with crayon. I have no doubt there are some out there that could get me, probably a decent amount. Then you add in bezels and hands which I know even less of oh yeah, I can get got. So anyway sorry that happened to you it is an expensive lesson but like others said the bracelet is solid and it could have been much worse.

I think the risk will always remain a bit higher with hobbiest collectors like myself who’s main reason I buy a watch is because it catches my eye. I imagine those who work on watches everyday or devout much more funds into their collections have put in much more time studying these things than I. Well damn this was a lot longer than I intended. I haven’t been able to talk watches much lately as some crazy stuff has been popping up (everything’s ok it’s just been eating up my time) good to talk watches again for a couple minutes even if my post did reach TLDR status.

rob#1

Welcome @JamesV 👍 and hang around. In next to no time you’ll have a watch for every day of the week!

Also, check this thread for assistance (https://omegaforums.net/threads/learn-how-to-fish.52603/[/QUOTE