I started collecting watches at the end of 2016..
Before that year I didn't wear watches. A friend of mine showed me a vintage Omega Seamaster geneve on a nato strap. " I bought it on Ebay!" he told me. It was cool! Then I started to search on the internet informations about vintage watches. I felt in love with the Omega Seamaster 300. I had no experience and no money in my pocket. My first watch was a Eberhard scafodat vintage won on Ebay for 250€.
I saved money for months for my dream watch: The Seamaster 300. I wanted to by a straight lugs Seamaster. A 2913 or a 14755.
Then, in April 2017 that Day came.
This is my first barn find. I found a sale announcement with fuzzy photos on an italian craigslist. I asked more pics and the seller replied to me with this one:

I contacted him via phone, he told me to be the son of the original owner and after some days of messages and calls we had a deal. " Yes, on the bracelet is marked 7912. On the end links 6, or maybe 9.. I don't know"..
I live near Milan. I took my first train to his location, Florence.I was bit scared to travel with a big sum of money. We met near the station Santa Maria in Florence, and had an appetizer. He was a 65 year old man. He showed me the watch. My knowledge in vintage Seamaster was limited. I remember that the gasket of the caseback was sticked because he never opened it. Finally I opened it and after a check was everything ok. He told me: "if you need more certainty we can go to the Omega boutique here and ask about his originality". Ok, let's do it. After some minutes of walk we were inside the boutique and we gave the watch to the employee. I still remember his enchanted gaze when having in his hands the watch. He showed us the Seamaster 300 Master Co-axial on his wrist and referring to the 14755 told us: " wow! you have the original!". After that I had a lunch with the seller ( he offered it to me) and he showed me some spots in his beautiful city.
This is my first pic on the return train:

Detailed photos I took after coming back home.
I changed the original lugs springs. Yes it still had those pieces.
The dial is 10/10.

The case is really nice.
You can see even 3 springs of the bracelet he gave to me in a scotch paper.

Here, after I received back the bezel from Aldo.


Here with some of my Seamaster 300 collection.
Is the first on the left.



I hope all of you and your families are well.
If you want to share the watch you felt in love with, I appreciate
Thank you for reading

 

Marvelous examples Nico! Congratulations and (to me) the end links are original #6.

 

We often see people here speaking about the "buying experience" when purchasing something from an Omega boutique, but to me this is the description of my dream experience

 

I love how you’ve gone from not wearing a watch to at least (assuming you have more with writing ‘some of my collection’) 4 pieces of grail worthy watches.

I’d definitely like to see more pictures of these and others in your collection, if you can.

 

The last day of the last business trip with my team before I moved to a different job at my former company. Spent the morning at Google Paris, said a wistful farewell to my EU direct reports, Lunch with a Paris based colleague at a small bistro on a flawless October day in the Seventh, then a stroll over to his brother’s vintage watch shop. I spent several hours there, discovered UG and wrested this out of his Speedmaster shrine. Later dinner with another US direct report at a little neighborhood place my colleague recommended. .Its far from perfect but within SN range, didn’t over pay, serviced but I will leave it as is. Great memories......

 

Thank you Marc! Yes they are original The wristcheese on the watch, bacelet and end links was very old

 

Thank you! Yes is the kind of feeling we remind well. The time we spend on the forum pages learning about a reference, the long research we take, the thrill when we find something, when we call and when we finally possess the watch. These sensations are unique.

 

I posted something in the past and sure, I will post in the next future

 

Cool!! It's a 2998-1 or 2?

 

-6

 

Sorry, my fault. I saw the short indexes on the 30 minutes subdial on my iPhone but was a mistake. Next time I put on glasses.

 

Beautiful watch and as has already been said, these are by far the best and most memorable vintage watch buying experiences: travelling far afield to pick up a long desired rarity, meeting the family of the first owner, gaining a nice anecdote about that person or the watches history. I love it!

Your story reminds me of one of my 300's, this was a 2012 EBay UK only sale ( I'm in NL ) where I managed to negotiate a cash deal outside of the bay for a family watch. The only problem was the seller absolutely wouldn't post....which left me with no alternative than to fly Amsterdam-Bristol-Amsterdam one morning/afternoon to pay and pick it up. A nice chat over coffee with the nephew of the original owner who told me something of his uncle's watches history.

And fortunately my sister lives in Bristol so I could combine the deal with a very nice fish lunch together with her at a restaurant in Bristol harbour ( she thought me totally mad of course for flying in for a beat up watch )

Here the watch in question after a fair amount of TLC...

 

drool..... these pics are just some cruel teasing during this time of social distancing.... watching the minutes tick away.... to the next adventure...

 

theres a couple of really nice stories.. and watches in here.
lovely pieces!

 

Nice story and very nice watch!! Love the lollipop! Is a late 2913 or a 14755? 2002.. great times! When they were cheap yes I totally agree with you. These watches are full of history and I love to hear the tales of the original owners and the places they visited with the watch on their wrist.

 

Wow I need to get out more. I guess my watch story of perusing eBay daily, setting up a snipe, and waiting for the package to arrive is not very story-time worthy.
Thank you for the read!

 

You’re welcome
PS I bought lot of nice watches, and lost via eBay...

 

Wow remind me of my Ed White story 4 years back.
beautiful straight lug SM. Well these stories are geeting rarer today

 

Beautiful watches Nico, you have a good eye. Maybe two of them.

 

It's a 2913, IIRC a -6