Good afternoon, I need your kind assistance to identify my cousin's watch, a vintage Omega in beautiful condition, heired by his family and still perfectly running. I just have these three pictures, sorry for the lack of details - I didn't ask him to open and picture the inner mechanism. May I just ask you whatever available info on the model, year, caliber and so on? Thank you indeed, Marco
At first, it looks like an old model with spider lugs like this one http://omegaforums.net/threads/omeg...cal-265-1954ish-rare-combo-all-original.3699/ But the lugs on your watch look much longer and wider (20mm lug to lug) Could be a custom made case ?
Dear Hoipolloi, Thank you for this kind reply. No, I don't think this could be a customer-made case. It was bought at the beginning of the '50s in a goldsmith's shop in Varazze, Italy. Perhaps my cousin still has its original sales receipt, but with no useful info on the watch itself.
Like Hoi I too suspect it is a custom made case - perhaps for the South American market. Will need to see photos of the inside caseback to confirm or refute this suspicion.
As kindly requested, here a couple of pictures from the inside of the watch. Do you have any idea? Thank you once again, M.
As suspected it is a custom case and not a swiss cased omega. The dial and movement are original omega pieces from the 50s. One potential issue with these custom cases is that even though they may have 14k or 18k gold marks they may in fact not really be solid gold. Value as you might expect would be significantly lower than if it were a 14k or 18k solid gold swiss case.
Thank you, MSNWatch. That's interesting. Since the case was also bought in the early Fifties, with the whole watch, I'd suppose it is of the same period. Do you agree? May I ask you why, in your opinion, was used a non-Omega case?
There were import restrictions on gold cases - either prohibited outright or taxed prohibitively that certain countries - France and many South American countries in the 1950s imported uncased omega movements and dials and then cases were fabricated in the country of sale. The problem was the quality was not up to the same standard as the swiss cases and then there is the question of gold purity. Even the US has many omega watches cased here by Norman Morris (US distributor of omega during the 50s-60s) though those cases (similar to the Dennison cases for omegas sold in the UK) were similar in quality to the swiss made cases.
Thank you once again, Hoipolloi and MSNWatch. I think this is historically interesting. Is it possible to know more about the caliber of the movement, instead?
It's right there, on the movement (265?) By looking at the lugs and the movement spacer, I think the case was handmade by a local jeweler.