My grandfather had a 1954 Seamaster 2759-2/2761 manual wind with cal.420, which was passed down to my father decades ago. Unfortunately, it was atrociously re-dialed when my uncle (who was borrowing the watch) wore the piece into the Arabian sea! The watch was fully serviced, but the watchmaker replaced the lumed dauphine hands with non-lumed versions, and must have gone through his parts bin and put in a Seamaster Automatic dial.

Recently, my father has conveyed that he wants to restore the watch...the hands and crown are easy enough to get from Ofrei. But I'm at a loss for how to find a replacement dial. After spending time showing him pictures of various versions of the watch, his eyes lit up when he saw this:



Obviously, he remembers the dial being much newer looking...but this is the correct dial for my grandfather's watch. I'd love any advice on how to find one...what sites to check...etc. Nothing on eBay or anywhere else that I can find, so I thought I'd give you folks a try.

Thanks!

 

Best bet would probably be finding another whole watch on ebay, which may seem excessive but probably much more likely than finding a dial and hands on there.

I'm taking into account the sentimental value of the watch, being your grandfathers, and allowing that some over capitalization would be acceptable.

You could then take both watches down to a watchmaker and get yours assembled/serviced with the good parts, and the donor assembled with the old parts then resold to recoup some of the money spent.

As long as you are honest in the description in your ebay listing, especially in regards to the repainted dial, you are not doing a disservice to anyone and there'll be someone who wants it as it is.

 

Thanks for your response..that's what I was thinking as well. The sentimental value is worth it to me, especially if it makes my father happy.