Help with purchase

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Hello, im brand new to vintage and have been looking for a starter seamaster when i came across this little guy.
Just curious if everything looks good etc, was serviced in 2025
Seller wants around 650 eur.

 
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Here what I’ve noticed and my opinion others will follow up I’m sure.
The dial looks poorly touched up especially the wording “chronometer n officially “ tho unclear the poor photos and possible scratches on the crystal make this look worse without a clear photo of the dial you aren’t going to tell 100% what you’re actually buying the movement looks clean to clean, looks to have been polished up on the rotor weight and bridge, bracelet isn’t genuine and for 650 euro you can definitely find a better example.
 
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Here what I’ve noticed and my opinion others will follow up I’m sure.
The dial looks poorly touched up especially the wording “chronometer n officially “ tho unclear the poor photos and possible scratches on the crystal make this look worse without a clear photo of the dial you aren’t going to tell 100% what you’re actually buying the movement looks clean to clean, looks to have been polished up on the rotor weight and bridge, bracelet isn’t genuine and for 650 euro you can definitely find a better example.
IIRC the rotor/bridge is shiny from the factory. Dial is DEFINITELY a redial, and this isn't a particularly attractive watch for all the reasons you mentioned. That beat error on the timegrapher is horrifying for that movement. Amplitude is on the low end of decent, though I suspect the lift angle is wrong, so I'm guessing it is really ~235 degrees.
 
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Dial is DEFINITELY a redial

Care to elaborate?

looks to have been polished up on the rotor weight and bridge, bracelet isn’t genuine and for 650 euro you can definitely find a better example.

I don’t fully understand the comment re polished rotor / bridge. Movement looks fine to me.
The bracelet isn’t Omega, true, but it’s nice enough. I‘m not quite sure how much „better“ you can do for 650€. You can get a nice 60s Genève for that money, sure. But a good chronometer 2577/2767 is easily 1k+. 650 is about what rather shabby examples fetch.

An alternative perspective is parts value.
200-250 for the case, 200-250 for the movement, 50 for the hand set, 50 for indices and crown brings us close to 600 already. Leaves a dial, which will fetch a couple €/$/£ too…
It looks like something is going on around the indices, so I, too, would appreciate better pics of the dial if I was looking for an attractive watch.

Matter of taste if one finds this watch attractive. But one thing is surely isn’t is bad value for money. Now, that doesn’t necessarily give you a watch you enjoy wearing, but „you can do a lot better for 650“ isn’t a fair valuation to me. „Possibly not the best entry into vintage“ Sounds more like it, as I assume disassembling the watch and selling it in parts to recoup the money isn’t the plan.

LA is indeed incorrect by the way, should be 49. But an amplitude of 235ish also isn’t overly bad for those bumpers. BE isn’t great, true. Bottom line re service: Certainly wasn’t great work, but at 650€, what are you expecting.
 
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in my eyes the brass parts looks to have been polished good or bad thing I don’t know just explaining what I’ve noticed maybe it’s just a bad picture like the rest of them

This watch at its very max is 425 euro and would push to 460 euro with service which like you said the readouts look bad so that defeats the point . I do honestly believe it’s over priced especially as you don’t 100% know what you’re getting with the sht pictures

and you can definitely pick up better examples it’s just knowing where to look and getting them when they pop up then just getting a service knowing it’ll be done right the first time

the dial is the most important part to a watch in my eyes and yes obviously the movement actually working but personally I don’t accept a 100% accuracy as it’s old

Finding something with a good dial is always the best thing to start with because you ain’t ever going to repair that part to get it looking original
 
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I too don't think that is a redial. It shows no obvious tells. The S in Seamaster may look screwy but that is how they were in the the early 50s.

These are not a common reference and chronometer dials do have a premium over non rated models. This clearly needs work but I don't think the price is stupid. I'd put that around £500 (€575) as it is, and look to open maybe £250 to put it right mechanically.
 
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This watch at its very max is 425 euro and would push to 460 euro with service

At that price range I‘d literally buy every single beefy lug COSC example in that quality that comes to market, just for my parts drawer.
 
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I too don't think that is a redial. It shows no obvious tells. The S in Seamaster may look screwy but that is how they were in the the early 50s.

Exactly. Completely legit S for a late 14.7m serial. The switch from coathanger S was sometime around 14.2 or so I believe on this reference.
 
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The more I look at this watch, the more I think it may even be cheap. The lugs look good and the photos don't do the dial justice. Most of these show considerable signs of age. There is someting weird going on around the applied logo though, maybe that has been badly glued back on. If so it ain't so great. Or it could just be a smudge on the dial which is no big deal at all. Better photos needed before committing perhaps.
 
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At that price range I‘d literally buy every single beefy lug COSC example in that quality that comes to market, just for my parts drawer.
That’s what I do hahaha
 
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The photos are so bad, it's really hard to judge the dial. In some photos it looks discolored and unappealing, but in other photos, it looks like it might be ok. I do believe that there is some damage near the center post (probably from hand removal) and logo, and that would give me pause, TBH.

The case isn't bad and I'm not seeing any major issues with the movement. I think it's a risk because of the photos, and the dial might turn out to be stained or blemished. But you might get lucky.
 
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Photos are terrible. I think it is an original dial, but poorly cleaned.

Movement looks clean, but impossible to tell the condition, so assume it will need a cleaning.

Price is not bad but could be better, given all the uncertainties.

How much of a gambler are you?
gatorcpa
 
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I thought it was pretty clear that it was repainted, but I'm interested to hear how much the above differ in opinion. The top text seems to switch between 'boldness' between each word? Even officially and certified are different font weight.
 
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I thought it was pretty clear that it was repainted, but I'm interested to hear how much the above differ in opinion. The top text seems to switch between 'boldness' between each word? Even officially and certified are different font weight.
The photos are terrible, and it appears that the dial has been tampered with, possibly cleaned or touched up. But the overall two-tone finish looks legit to me.
 
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The photos are terrible, and it appears that the dial has been tampered with, possibly cleaned or touched up. But the overall two-tone finish looks legit to me.
Oh, sure, absolutely. The minute markers are fine too.

It VERY much looks to me like the area under the omega logo has been re-painted. My suspicion is as you said, a dial that was cleaned, and needed the text fixed. We've always considered that a 're-dial' (we follow a bit of a 'one touch of not factory->redial' rule it seems), so I've said that.
 
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It VERY much looks to me like the area under the omega logo has been re-painted.
Yep, could be.
 
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It VERY much looks to me like the area under the omega logo has been re-painted. My suspicion is as you said, a dial that was cleaned, and needed the text fixed. We've always considered that a 're-dial' (we follow a bit of a 'one touch of not factory->redial' rule it seems), so I've said that.

Ah. I‘d say it would be fair to mention those details - just saying that it’s „DEFINITELY“ a redial, in caps (!), gives a wrong picture in my opinion. We got a couple blurry pics of what could be a touch-up or dirt / glue around the Omega logo and in addition you have a suspicion. My impression is that usually around here, when people say that a dial was „DEFINITELY redialed“, they mean something very different.
 
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Ah. I‘d say it would be fair to mention those details - just saying that it’s „DEFINITELY“ a redial, in caps (!), gives a wrong picture in my opinion. We got a couple blurry pics of what could be a touch-up or dirt / glue around the Omega logo and in addition you have a suspicion. My impression is that usually around here, when people say that a dial was „DEFINITELY redialed“, they mean something very different.
"Redial" is used around here to just mean "not original" in some way. We seem to use it interchangeably for repainted as well, so that is what I did.
 
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We seem to use it interchangeably for repainted as well, so that is what I did.
I didn’t. I think that someone took the dial, removed the markers and lacquer damaging some of the printing in the process, then replaced the hardware.

IMO, still original printing, but damaged.
gatorcpa
 
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I didn’t. I think that someone took the dial, removed the markers and lacquer damaging some of the printing in the process, then replaced the hardware.

IMO, still original printing, but damaged.
gatorcpa
Ah, thats our difference at least. I believe the top text was re-drawn. There are some inconsistencies from what I can see that can't really be explained by damaged printing (the difference in font weight).