Hello everyone I am new to the forums with an old watch. I have a vintage Omega Model 166.020 with a 560 caliber movement it has an Omega serial number in the 21 million so it dates back to 1964. My father had it and I remember playing with it as a kid my father was an Iron Worker and he wore the watch to work and needless to say he beat it up a bit. Well he put it in a drawer and there it sat for 40 some odd years. Well I have a friend who is training himself to be a watchmaker so I gave it to him to see what he could do with it these photos are that result. It was missing the 6 and the crystal was thrashed i cannot fault him he did the best with what he had. But I do not like the way it is now sitting you can notice a large gap around the watch face and the crystal is a bit raised my question to the forum I want to one day pass this down to my son so should i send it to Omega Or does anyone know of a good watchmaker in California around the Sacramento, Modesto,San Francisco area?

 

From what I can see, the crystal currently on this watch is not a genuine Omega crystal. My feeling is that the tension ring in this crystal doesn’t have the appropriate step in it that an Omega crystal would have, and this is why the dial has the gap around it. This is why it’s always better to use an OEM crystal on these...

 

Great to have something of your fathers. Nice idea passing it down. Hopefully you can fix it up, sending it too Omega would be silly expensive I can’t give u an idea on anyone near you I’m on the east coast but google it or maybe someone here can help. Good luck

 

Hi thanks for the reply really appreciate it I see you are a Omega watch maker do you know the easiest way too find one in my area? This is my first real watch and I'd like to find a qualified person to look at it.

 

Hey thanks yeah finding someone to trust with my watch that's going to be the hard party I think but hopefully someone here can point me in the right direction.

 

Many watchmakers will say a generic crystal is fine and for many watches it is (and sometime the only option)- but as Archer said, they’re structural in the case of your watch and the correct factory part is imperative. You need to find a watchmaker with an Omega parts account which is the key. Sure, any watchmaker can work on them, but you have to have a parts account to get factory parts- so that’s the question to ask- “do you have have an Omega parts account”?