My inherited CK 2975

I joined the forum some years ago with the intention of posting about this 1958 Seamaster that originally belonged to my maternal grandfather, but I didn't have a decent phone back then for photos. Now that I've upped my iPhone game, here goes. My grandfather's story was that the watch was a retirement gift when he retired from working as a mail clerk on the railroads; his sister-in-law claimed he got it at a pawnshop. Either way, he passed in the early nineteen-sixties so wouldn't have owned it for long. It made its way to my father, and I remember him wearing it in the early seventies. We were economically at the lower end of the middle class so a gold Omega was quite an extravagance in my eyes. At some point he stopped wearing it, and I recall him mentioning that he brought it to a local watch repair place and they messed it up in some way, so it went into the safe deposit box until my father passed in 2018. I was the sibling that expressed the most interest in it so it came to me. At that point the crystal was pretty scratched up, the movement was rattling in the case and not running, and there was a generic crown on it.

So after determining that it wasn't a priceless relic that belonged in a museum, I headed downtown to Nesbit's to see about getting it fixed up to be worn again. Tom popped the casebook off and said it was a cal 500, CK 2975. The movement was dry but in very good shape otherwise, and just needed their standard vintage service to get up and running. While discussing the condition of the dial, Jan mentioned that they could still get an "original" dial for it, so I opted for a new dial and hands, since I wanted it to look like the nice gold watch from my memories. You can see the original dial below; I guess the local repair place had tried to clean it up and removed a lot of the print. I prefer the bar indices myself, and don't miss the radium.

I don't have any movement photos, but I assume the casebook is the star of the show. The watch spent most of its 68 years of life thus far in storage so the back is in quite good shape. I'm not sure how the back of the lugs got scratched up; it doesn't look like the kind of scratches you'd get from changing the straps. And the gold-capped case has only a few small dings. Timing is pretty good if I keep it wound and worn, maybe 10 seconds a day. Now let's just hope the photos load properly!

Thanks for the feedback. I assumed Jan was a bit loose with the word "original", but I wasn't sure how recently the new dial was made. Is Omega still making service parts for the 50's and 60's era Seamasters? I thought it was great that after 60 years it was possible to bring it back to good as new, so that now when I wear it I see the watch that I remember my dad wearing, and I'm not reminded of the ill treatment of the original dial. If it were a rare or historical watch that would be different, but this deserves to be worn and enjoyed.

Also, it seems I should have referred to it as a KO 2975 since it's gold capped, not pure stainless steel. The Omega site only shows the CK 2975 under a google search.