Looking for a place to restore a Vintage Omega.

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Hi all,

I've recently acquired an old and battered Omega watch. I'm looking at getting it restored to its original glory. Does anyone know of any good watch restoration services in the UK?
 
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That thing needs to be buried back where it was found. RIP
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Poor thing needs to be put outta it’s misery, that will cost an absolute motza to restore
 
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It’s going to be complicated and expensive to restore, it’s only original once and will cost more than the eventual value. The dial can be repainted (by the likes of David Bill or V Soni) and the case polished but the caseback looks pretty poor with very deep corrosion. It could, I guess be laser welded and refinished but I doubt it will look perfect. If the movement shows any corrosion like the back then it’ll be a very tough job to get the parts to do it justice. In summary, if you are happy to spend maybe approaching £1k then it may be possible to produce something tidy worth maybe £600 which will no longer appeal to collectors. Some pieces are just too far gone to save, unless that is there is a sentimental imperative as noted previously.
 
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As above, the time and cost to Restore will far outweigh the value of the watch when finished. If you’ve just bought it (hopefully very cheap) I’d just sel it on and count your losses.
If however, it’s an heirloom you’ve acquired and you want to return it to usable condition regardless of cost, you need to decide what you want doing. Every additional step will improve the aesthetic of the watch but increase the cost of the work and decrease originality.

From your pictures these are likely some of the options;
Movement service - required for proper and accurate function of the movement.
Guven the poor condition of the caseback, hopefully there no rust on the movement.
New Caseback - the existing one is in terrible condition. However, locating a vintage replacement might not be easy and is something you may need to find yourself once you know the reference number. A brand new service caseback may or may not be available but you’d need a watchmaker with an Omega parts account.
Dial - the dial is poor but original. It’s extremely unlikely you’ll find a new dial from anywhere for this so the options are probably leave as is or get it repainted. Repainting frequently gives inconsistent results and is frowned upon as it destroys originality but the dial looks quite poor.

So, you need to clarify what you mean by restoration first and it’s an umbrella term. The obvious place is the UK is Swiss Time Services as they will assess the watch and give you a list of must do’s and a list of could do’s which you can decide from. I’d expect the price to end up at £800+.
 
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I’ve just spotted that a big chunk of the gold cap is missing near the crown. I do think this is game over since I don’t know of a way to repair this, you can’t just replate the case unless you strip all the existing thick gold off and I don’t think that’s even possible. Perhaps it could have gold laser welded on but I’ve not seen that done like that before. In summary you’ll need a new dial, crystal, mid case, crown, caseback and who knows how many movement parts. It’ll be like a very expensive and wholly unoriginal Trigger’s Broom. As such I now update my repair guesstimate to more like £1,500+ if indeed you can find someone to take it on.

If it needs to be restored at any cost, then this may be a candidate for a full Omega Bienne restoration. It wouldn’t be cheap but you’ll get back something like new using genuine (service) parts which may actually work out cheaper than using UK specialists.

You haven’t said how you acquired this yet. If it was a family gift then I can see the dilemma, but if it was a £10 pickup at a car boot sale or charity shop lucky dip bin then congratulate yourself that you can sell it as is for parts on eBay and get maybe £100.
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As mentioned already, the watch is too far gone (and not valuable or special enough) to be worth restoring. Perhaps there are some parts in the movement that can be used to repair other watches.