New Hesalite Speedmaster

Hello all,

I just received my first modern Omega (a Hesalite Speedmaster Professional) and it has been a mostly good experience. I will say first and foremost, Topper Jewelers was/is fantastic to deal with. I will for sure go to them for my next purchase. On the other hand, the Omega Boutique in Summit, NJ has been a disappointment.

I decided to have Joe from Topper send the watch unsized, as I had the necessary drivers and bracelet block to do it myself. After realizing that the blade of my screwdriver had been damaged and I would do more harm than good to attempt it, I gave into my impatience and headed to the OB. I've been burned before by a jeweler roughing up a watch, but the boutique surely wouldn't be a problem, right? They were really nice and accommodating but upon getting home and admiring my new watch under better light I realized that they had added some lovely swirling to the sides of a few links. I turned on my drafting light to take a better look and found that there were also some light scratches on the crystal. The ironic part to all of this is that I left all of the plastic coverings on the watch to avoid such issues. They of course removed the one on the crystal during the sizing process. As expected the salesperson denied any wrong doing and insisted that any scratches were there already. The watch quite literally went from the box to their hands with all plastic intact. Despite this, the manager is going to reach back at some point.

I am a bit surprised to be honest. They had this platform desk in the back of the boutique where they do bracelet sizing, and it was extremely cluttered. The pad that they worked on was pretty grimy looking and the employees talked to each other like teenagers while customers were around. I would have expected a little more in terms of professionalism and care.

Anyway, forgive the novel but I wanted to share my experience. I do have a couple of questions for all of you Speedy owners. I think that I've seen enough examples online already to know the answers but thought I'd check in here as well. How common is it for the etched Omega logo on the crystal to be uncentered and rotated? And similarly, how common is it for the chronograph seconds hand to not fall directly center on the 12 o'clock index?

I also had some big scratches added to a new watch by the boutique I bought it from. It's the same as with anything else, the only person you can truly trust to do anything right is yourself, but that means getting the tools, knowledge, experience, and we can hardly do that for everything. It is shockingly easy to add the small scratches.

On the chronograph seconds hard, it seems very common that it is not perfectly centered, but also on a new watch it would be something you could inquire about. I'd use it first, and see how much it really bothers you. You might lose the watch for months for a service, and it might not be worth that.

Please post pictures!

I do all my own sizing, but I do have all the right tools to make sure that it gets done properly.

Polywatch is your friend, that said cluttered and grimey work benches has no place in a professional setting. Let them buy you the polywatch, you are going to need it with that soft plastic crystal.

Thank you all for your responses. I've made my peace with my experience at the OB, but unfortunately, the odyssey continues.
I'm trying to work out what is a quirk or normal behavior of the movement, and what may be an actual concern.

When setting the time, I noticed that there was a slight movement of the chronograph seconds hand. Upon further investigation, I found that if I were to move the crown until the hands start to engage, and then turn it ever so slightly back and forth, the entire cannon pinion (?) and hands will bounce up and down. And, when I say bounce, I mean vertically up and down from 12 to 6.

Unfortunately, the service representatives at Omega were not much help, so I thought I'd try my luck with an actual watchmaker and messaged Archer. He hasn't heard of any others reporting this behavior. For all of you 3861 owners out there, do you experience anything like this?

The video below captures this movement:

Doesn't look ok