Looking for a 1960’s Seamaster for my 70th birthday present to myself.

Many thanks for the intro. With patience, by asking advice, by and educating yourself, and with an appropriate budget, I'm sure you will do well. Just a few notes that came to mind as I was reading:

- Gold-capped would be your second choice, ahead of gold-filled.

- Legitimate black dial SM are much less common than other dials. But they are popular and desired, so dials are very often repainted that color. You will need to be extra patient and extra careful to find a good black dial.

- Regarding gold dials, some people like them very much and they can be really elegant. But the visibility of hands on a gold dial is sometimes not very good, which is a concern for some people.

Welcome to the forum.
VickyG is a great example of patience and I hope you have the same.
Our standard advice is to learn what you like and then learn about what you like.
Black dials are beauties but are often misrepresented.
Ask questions, be polite and this place will bend over backwards to help!

I'll be 70 this year and a great watch signifies how it's quality defines and defies age.

Are you looking for a great watch to wear and enjoy or are you looking for a totally correct collectible example?
We are a collector's forum and can be critical in area's that aren't so important to people looking for a nice, wearable watch.

Your example, at first glance, appears to have a repainted dial that looks fantastic but would put off a collector.
Note how the lume dot is inconsistent at 11 and the dots seem to vary as to being above, even or below the minute markers. The "swiss made" font seems non-conforming and it is somewhat word centered as opposed to the more representative phrase centered.

I am often wrong and there are many variations but the experts may concur that this is a "redial", a repainting of the original dial often done as part of a normal service. It doesn't affect wearability but does affect value, especially to a collector's forum.

You are in a great environment to discover your dream, just be patient and ask first!

Just as an FYI, it is conventional on this forum to post photos of watches, not links, if you have questions. This allows threads to have archival value since the photos are hosted by OF. eBay listings are transient. Many people will simply not bother to follow links, so you will get more help if you post photos.

Happy B-day and welcome. Not like deals like this pop up all the time but I got this 66 seamaster for around 50 bucks. It’s certainly not a perfect example but I always liked it. You can still find them at decent prices, not 50 bucks of course but I’ve seen several nice ones here go for reasonable prices. Good luck to you. I’ll put up some picks but no natural lighting they won’t be that good. Oh sorry it’s a 65 my error

I think this answers your question from the post above, about whether to stay away from repainted dials. A repainted dial is not an original piece. As you become familiar with the original vs. redialed, you'll probably come to agree with most of us here that original dials almost always look superior. You won't enjoy a black dial once you can pick out the signs that it's a repaint, and you'll regret it every time you see a photo of a genuine dial, which will instantly be apparent to you as better looking.

"The case is In superb condition as can be seen in the images with just light wear and a mark on one lug."

Sellers glasses went missing just before they wrote the description. Actual description would be - Gold plated case is beat to shit and polished to death.

Ha ha yeah I know I hope it’s not being an idiot bringing up the fifty dollar thing believe me I can’t find things like that if I look for them you sometimes stumble across them through friends or the odd junk shop but so infrequently (for me anyway) I certainly don’t count on it. I can see why you like the black dials so are so nice looking but I start with the assumption they are redone. I won’t bother giving any feedback on the example you linked I’ll just say a couple of the guys who commented I’ve spoken to and know they are knowledgeable. Ok two months till the big day that’s plenty of time to do a nice hunt and have success. You are being smart asking for opinions people here know these things very well.

Welcome @RobertinWC and congrats on that 1968 coupe! Would you like to share a picture? I know, I know, that’d be off-topic, but then again there are plenty of petrol heads around and... it’s an E-Type!

Regarding your search: 2 month is generally plenty to find a nice vintage Seamaster. 2 month isn’t necessarily plenty to find a nice, original, black-dialed SM DeVille without throwing a considerable sum at it. With the exception of the odd lucky shot, rule of thumb would be: the less time you want to invest, the more money you’ll need to invest (to find a good piece).

The question wether a refurbished dial would be something for you is one only you can answer as I believe we might not be the best crowd to answer this. You might want to ask yourself if a repainted, restored E-Type, possibly without “matching numbers” would be ok for you - and please don’t read this with an implied message, but simply as a neutral question.

Personally, while I wouldn’t buy a redialed watch anymore (unless I’d be planning to replace the dial with a correct one or use it for parts), I completely understand if somebody isn’t deep in the vintage game, has a clear idea of what aesthetics he’s after and would therefore accept a watch that’s simply beautiful, albeit not technically “original/correct”. It’d certainly make it easier to find an example and as long as case and movement are fine I doubt you’d have a problem passing it one with no or a minimal loss, should you find yourself drawn to originality in this new hobby.

Also, as I’m sure is the case for vintage cars as well, there are significant differences to the quality of the restoration jobs on those dials. You’ll find examples that look like they were done by a child with a pen. But there are also ones that were printed, that were done nicely and that couldn’t be spotted as refurbished by non-watch people. Even us nerds here do have lengthy discussions on occasion whether a particular dial was refinished or not. And that’s with enlarged pictures on our computer screens, not looking at a 34mm watch from a distance on a wrist.

Either way, great introduction and I’m sure with some patience members here will be happy to assist you finding one that you like. 😀

Yea I think we’d all love to see a pic of that E-Type can never get enough of those

Although it’s acceptable to restore, respray and generally refurbish a vintage car, it’s generally not okay to do the same thing to a collectible vintage watch.

It’s nice to have the numbers but photos can help.

The top photo is a 166.010 with a 565 movement.



The next two are both 165.003 with calibre 552 movements.

Both of these have a slim profile (see below)

One of the reasons I like these is the dauphine shape hands.