Continuing my journey to find a fine arrowhead constellation, I met up with a prospective seller today to check this watch out:

Everything looks fine except for the missing "Swiss made" text which is a red flag for me. Seller claim that previous seller told him that its normal for some constellation of this variant (2852 cal 501) to have no "Swiss Made" text.

Does anyone know whether this is normal?

 

Not a problem. Such text did not always appear.

Nice watch!

 

I would expect to to see Swiss Made on a Constellation.

 

Do you mean that you believe that dial not to be original?

 

Me too.

There is something odd going on at the periphery of the dial - that circular mark look like a different tension ring has been mounted. My guess would be that the dial has been cleaned at some point and the SWISS MADE text erased by accident.

 

now that you mentioned it. .You meant to say the odd gap between the 6 o clock marker and tension ring?? (moss area)

 

This.

 

Yep. Dials with wide markers like this one usually have the SWISS MADE text on the left and right side of the 6 o'clock marker, but sometimes it is partially underneath it. I could imagine it getting rubbed away by the tension ring or perhaps when using force to clean off the stains on the dial.

 

So just to be clear, all omega constellation watch during these period will either have "Swiss" or "Swiss made" around the 6 o clock indicator.

@Tony C. You mentioned that some do not have Swiss made text. Just for my curiosity, what are some of the watches you have chanced upon that has excluded those text?

 

I haven't seen a Constellation without that text and it would be the norm on Swiss watches of this era in general. If we're talking older watches from the forties or even early fifties, standards are a bit more hazy and there are many exceptions.

The rest of the text looks excellent, by the way.

 

First, I am not a Constellation expert, so I do largely defer to those who have spent countless hours seeking them out. Having said that, in my experience this issue is almost never black and white. I have seen too many anomalies across many brands to be entirely comfortable with "never".

@ConElPueblo may well be correct in his reading of this particular dial, but I do seem to recall having seen other examples. Here is one, though I suppose that the same issue could have perhaps occurred:




And here are two others, the second (possibly a redial?) of which was sold by a member of this forum back in 2009. I can't be certain that the signature is missing in both cases, but they are worth considering.

 

Did someone sold the second here on OF? Hmmm

 

No, you are not reading carefully. Someone who is a member of the forum sold the watch long before this forum existed.

 

Ah.

 

I don't know who it belongs to but remember, he owns some redials, too.

 

I have never owned a redial...

 

The second one you show is the OP's watch!

I'd also expect to see Swiss Made on the dial but the lack of it wouldn't stop me buying the OP's watch if the price was right.

 

Good eye!

 

OPs dial is original IMO, but has been cleaned at some stage as indicated by the varnish in and around Omega.
The cleaning has been done very well, no loss of text/markers/cross hairs, but maybe SWISS MADE was a casualty.

 

Thanks folks for chiming in. It's always good to learn something new about constellations everyday.

Also I managed to find a picture of the same model that was unfortunately sold out: