Hi everyone, I'm a new member of this forum. Nice to meet you all. I'm also new to the vintage watch game and I recently purchased a vintage Omega. It is the Omega you can see in the pictures. What I can tell you about the watch is that it is a ref 2405-5 with a calibre 283 movement and serial number 1162449. The Omega logo and daggers are raised and gold colored. The hour and minute hand are gold as well and the second hand is blue. The case is 36mm. There is no Omega logo on the crystal or crown. The watch it's self works fine so far. I Like the ticking it makes I know I probably should have consulted this forum before buying, but I found out about the forum afterwards. So I did some research on my own (looking up the ref, cal and serial numbers, checking pictures from other watches from that reference) and decided it was legit so I went on and bought it. Apart from that I don't know anything about the watch and I'm really curious to find out what the experts on this forum can tell me about it. Any information you can give me is greatly appreciated. I thank you kindly in advance!
All of the details you provided make sense. the caliber 283 was introduced in 1949 and thee serial number dates the movement to about 1947/1950. The crown looks to be a generic replacement. The dial has been re-finished/re-painted and the hands are not likely to have come with the watch originally, however they are used on watches from that period.
But I can understand people would find this a attractive dial. But most here on OF are looking for the original stuff... But enjoy your watch!
Thank you so much for answering! I assumed it has been restored. But is it safe to say that except for the restoration the watch is "legit" (as in not a fake)? And as far as restoration go, is this considered a proper one?
It's not a fake but it's a omega which was probably in bad shape and somebody refinished the dial, put a generic crown on and some hands. I think these came originally with dauphine hands.
As restorations go, it's a good one. It has been neatly and sympathetically done, without the usual obvious errors that scream a redial such as uneven minute markers and wobbly letters. To an experienced collector the redial is fairly obvious, but that's mostly due to its overall appearance, which isn't actually bad but has that indefinable look which you learn to spot after hours of scrutinising the good, the bad and the ugly
Whatever the history and originality of the dial and hands, to my eyes, and in my opinion, it's an attractive watch. It's never going to satisfy a collector looking for originality, but unless you have that mindset, that may not be as important to you. For all we know, the time and effort put into your watch may have rescued it from the scrapheap, and when such endeavours result in a restored watch that an owner enjoys wearing, as far as I'm concerned, it's all good.
I would like to thank you all for taking the time and effort to respond to my question. And thanks for making me feel welcome here!
It doesn't necessarily need to be literally closer, but higher resolution. Presumably the original image is very high-res, so you can crop out the logo area.
Fellow newbie here. Looks like a redial and clearly has seen some polish, but still a cool watch! Whatever restoration was done made it look great. Have fun wearing it, I'm sure our won't be your last omega