This came in the post this morning. Want to get the back off but not obvious how to without possible damage, any tips. Want to get a few pics before sending to Simon F. for a checkout. Tks, Marcus
Best tip is to keep it till a watchmaker can look at it. If you do need to open it, best to get a thin piece of plastic sheet (a cut coin bag works well,) place it over the slot you will use a caseback knife, and use a very thin blade - a craft knife blade is very useful, or a surgical blade if you can find one. And resist the urge to pop it up, @Archer recommends going around the case with progressively bigger tools until the caseback just loosens itself off. A pop and you can easily gauge the soft gold.
Ok, so after a lot of patience and then I heard that pop........ nice set of marks....looks correct for a 14327 a 13m 354 bumper movement in not bad condition.....
Off to Simon F. now for service and see if he can improve the dial. Anyone have experience with these guilloche dials. Marcus
This buckle came with the watch. From the sticky on buckles it seems a genuine Omega. Any ideas if this could be original to the watch.
It's gold plated buckle to a solid gold case, so I would say a replacement (or official if it was offered for a lower price during initial sale.) @mondodec should know more about the watchand buckle
It is the shape of the buckle that indicates it is a replacement not the material. Most of the gold chronometers which I have examined (and that was a large number) had only plated buckles... it is reasonable as the buckles were "consumer parts" which were discarded together with the worn out straps Only few of the more prestigous models like the Centenaire or de Luxe or Grand Luxe had solid gold buckles.
While waiting for the watch to return I have been looking into the case back markings using the reference website http://www.vintagewatchstraps.com/swisspdm.php#pdm5 The key of Geneva with #28 indicates watch cases made by Patek Philippe. I have already applied for an extract......have never seen anything like case maker info on a archive extract so will be interesting to see what it says if anything. Might ping the Patek archive to see what they say.
Nice example. Movement looks tidy and the dial original. I'd leave the dial as is, because there are so few specialists around these days who could improve it by removing the lacquer and re-laquering. Agree with Erich re the buckle and it looks very much like a Sixties replacement. Patek still has that mark registered, but in those days Patek was a much smaller operation and clearly augmented income by making cases for others. Cheers Desmond
Took a while but back from Simon now after a clean and movement service. Now combined with period Omega strap and gold buckle.
Looks stunning and an interesting watch. Let us know if anything interested comes out of the archive information. Best regards Chris
Have started by getting a archive extract. Likely it will be the easy bit. Getting more info from either Omega or Patek about the case will be more difficult. So far Patek have not answered my requests for info.
Awesome! Serial number is only 25 away from the one I have listed for sale. Would be interesting to know how many of these were produced.
See the case reference numbers are only 5 away from each other. Does anyone else on the forum have one of these. Can you share your movement and case numbers.
And several French gold cased watches, as well as a few (many?) British's ones. I am not sure of the ratio, but I guess there were more solid gold buckles in French and maybe British Omegas of that period. But is another topic!