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  1. thecollector Nov 27, 2018

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    I came across this local shop in my city claiming themselves to specialise in trading genuine vintage watches. They offered this Seamaster De Ville circa 1966 featuring calibre 550 as shown in this link:

    http://donghocothuysi.com/san-pham/dong-ho-co-omega-seamaster-987.html

    [​IMG]

    To my knowledge, Cal.550 comes with 17 jewels, but their photo shows "24 jewels" on the movement. Is that a signal of counterfeit work?

    Thank you for your response.
     
  2. Omegista Nov 27, 2018

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    Maybe the rotor/winder bridge is swapped at some point. I'm not sure, but could that be a rotor/winder bridge from a 552 or 565?
     
    Edited Nov 27, 2018
  3. Archer Omega Qualified Watchmaker Nov 27, 2018

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    As I've said many times, these movements were designed to have the entire automatic winding system replaced as a unit when it had problems. This is often why you will see watches (like this one) where the colour of the automatic winding system, is slightly different than the rest of the movement. This was a selling feature of this movement, at least to watchmakers, who could buy the entire auto wind system and quickly swap it out if needed.

    If you were a watchmaker who took care of your customers, you would likely buy the best auto wind system you could for the replacements, and that would have been the one that had the jewels in it rather than bushings. What would have been going above and beyond in the time it was done, is now often seen as a possible "franken" or worse, which is kind of sad.

    Cheers, Al