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Omega 30t2 vintage: any advice?

seduriku
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Hello,

I'm new to vintage watches and I fell in love with an old Omega from the 40's in 18k gold I saw on an auction site. I find it really attractive but I don't have the knowledge to determine if it's an original model or a franken watch. I've not found a similar watch on google or on the Omega website.

I suspect the crown is not original as it's not indicated on the auction.

Could anyone give some advice about it? Is there any evidence that this watch is a franken, or a redial?

1.jpeg 9.jpeg 2.jpeg 8.jpeg



Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
 
iamvr
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Hi and welcome to OF

This watch looks familiar as I also saw it online. I was first interested myself but then passed on it as I think it's a redial. Look at the irregular or misaligned minute hashmarks, best seen left and right of the 5 o'clock hour mark. The distances are not equal. And at 6 o'clock you can see that the thicker hour marker was painted above a slim marker, best seen on picture 3.

Plus, what i also thought was weird is that the arabic numbers don't overlap equally into the inner circle.

But hey, I may be totally wrong. In fact, I have a pretty bad track record in calling out irregularities on this forum 😀. So maybe other members can chime in and I stand corrected.
 
Dan S
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Looks very nice to me, just wondering if there should be SWISS at the bottom. Maybe it is hidden.
 
seduriku
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Dan S Dan S
Looks very nice to me, just wondering if there should be SWISS at the bottom. Maybe it is hidden.
There's no hidden "swiss" at the bottom, there's another picture of the dial out of the case (the pic is in a not very big resolution, which could maybe be suspect)
 
seduriku
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iamvr iamvr
Hi and welcome to OF

This watch looks familiar as I also saw it online. I was first interested myself but then passed on it as I think it's a redial. Look at the irregular or misaligned minute hashmarks, best seen left and right of the 5 o'clock hour mark. The distances are not equal. And at 6 o'clock you can see that the thicker hour marker was painted above a slim marker, best seen on picture 3.

Plus, what i also thought was weird is that the arabic numbers don't overlap equally into the inner circle.

But hey, I may be totally wrong. In fact, I have a pretty bad track record in calling out irregularities on this forum 😀. So maybe other members can chime in and I stand corrected.

Thank you to share your observations, really appreciated. I'm wondering if the irregular markers can only be due to simple "time outrage", or if it's the result of a redial. Maybe a water damage on the edge of the dial between 2 and 6, that has been masked (poorly, or a long time ago)?
 
Franco
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Personally I don’t think is a redial - the sub second dial is perfectly centered and the applied indices just proud of the silvered ring. If you confirm that the texture is like vertically micro-brushed, rather than sandblast effect, I would suggest is just a great dial.

plus the movement is in equally great condition, which would mean no humidity and no damage to the dial either.
 
MSNWatch
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When you see that crown, that blue subdial hand and that subdial print your mind is put at ease.
 
seduriku
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Thanks for all your valuable inputs, the heart has spoken and I just pulled the trigger. I will post pictures on the forum if anyone is interested and will let you know if anything wrong appears when I'll have the watch in my hands.

It looks like there's a nice and knowledgeable community here 😉
 
Franco
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seduriku seduriku
Thanks for all your valuable inputs, the heart has spoken and I just pulled the trigger. I will post pictures on the forum if anyone is interested and will let you know if anything wrong appears when I'll have the watch in my hands.

It looks like there's a nice and knowledgeable community here 😉

Of course we are interested!
 
seduriku
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Franco Franco
Personally I don’t think is a redial - the sub second dial is perfectly centered and the applied indices just proud of the silvered ring. If you confirm that the texture is like vertically micro-brushed, rather than sandblast effect, I would suggest is just a great dial.

plus the movement is in equally great condition, which would mean no humidity and no damage to the dial either.

I'll check for the vertical micro-brushing, thanks for the advice 👍
 
SkunkPrince
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iamvr iamvr
Look at the irregular or misaligned minute hashmarks...
I had a long discussion with my watchmaker about this subject a while back. My Lemania hand-wind rose gold "dress" watch, its minute track is wildly off (under a loupe). He pointed out the quality of the printing, how it was raised, how the markers were even and uniform, and the kicker in this watch, the lume plots were tiny little round biscuits.

So printing being misregistered a bit in that era was apparently acceptable.
 
iamvr
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SkunkPrince SkunkPrince
I had a long discussion with my watchmaker about this subject a while back. My Lemania hand-wind rose gold "dress" watch, its minute track is wildly off (under a loupe). He pointed out the quality of the printing, how it was raised, how the markers were even and uniform, and the kicker in this watch, the lume plots were tiny little round biscuits.

So printing being misregistered a bit in that era was apparently acceptable.

Thanks for sharing this information. This makes assessing those earlier models even trickier.

I've recently noticed that I've entered a new stage in this awesome (but still rather new) hobby from initially being overexcited about any nice looking watch to the other extreme, i.e. smelling deceit and fraud around every corner having been confronted with some many redials, frankens etc. Perhaps it's a normal evolvement for many, perhaps it's only my paranoid mind.

I guess erring on the conservative side is probably not a bad thing in the long run. In this case, it led me to dismiss a formidable watch obviously. The fact that it appeared so clean and priced attractively raised my suspicion. When examining the pictures - I realized in retrospect - I was not being objective, but subconsciously looking for clues to confirm my preexisting bias. Afterwards, when discussing my "findings" with other members privately, they responded along the lines like "I wouldn't have considered it a redial, but I see your concerns. But I'm not an expert on those earlier models, you better check with the wider OF community". The preexisting bias again led to a selective perception by putting more weight on the "I see your concerns" part, while ignoring the rest.

My consolation is that it ended up with another OF member (leaving a slight chance that it may resurface 😉). Great learning experience after all.

To the OP, congrats for the watch, enjoy it in good health!
 
seduriku
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iamvr iamvr
To the OP, congrats for the watch, enjoy it in good health!

Not an easy task to find the good balance I guess. Thank you again.

P.S Have you seen the Speedy 321 the same seller has put on auction today? Looks nice to my not so trained eye.
 
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