Hello everyone, I've been a long time forum watcher and am excited to finally have joined as I am in search of my first vintage omega as a gift for my father. He turns 70 this year, and I was looking to get him a early Seamaster that was born the same year as him (1948). I recently took a chance on a watch on eBay since the seller has a generous return policy and would like some help in authentication, as some things are not adding up. I took the watch to my local Omega authorized watchmaker. They validated that the movement is legit and the case is unpolished. The crystal and crown are not original, and while the dial has of course been redone, they said the work is extremely high quality. They couldn't do much more to identify it, and after contacting Omega it looks like I would be outside of the return period by the time they could get back to me with an archive pull. Also not super interested in paying $160 to ID a watch I might return. I'm hoping the experts here could quickly help me determine if this is a frankenwatch that should be returned or if it is indeed a legit early Seamaster that is worth keeping and servicing. Some things aren't adding up to me though. Caseback reference is 2398-3, which upon further research on the OVDB is from 1943 and not a Seamaster. I wasn't sure if using older cases in later models was something that was done though? Movement is a 332 and the serial number does date it to about 1948. The dial has been redone and has Arabic numbers at 2-4-6-8-10-12. All the Seamaster references I can find from the late 40s seem to have numerals at 3-6-9-12. Your help would be much appreciated!
2398 was, AFAIK, never marketed as a Seamaster... The vintage database isn't complete, so a 2398 could easily be newer than 1943, but as there is no waterproofing, it is unlikely that it was ever called a Seamaster. I'd return that watch as soon as I had the chance. The movement looks somewhat sad, too.
It is very difficult to identify exactly when a watch was produced from the serial number, for that you need a reference from the archives. Of course you may decide it is 'close enough' from the serial. I would highly recommend having a look at the private watch sales here, seamsters come up often. This one particularly comes to mind, it is dated to around 1950: https://omegaforums.net/threads/red...umper-cal-332-amazing-dial.70874/#post-903232, but there others for sale if you are on a smaller budget.