A well known seller of vintage Omega stuff from New Zealand. I'm not familiar with this dial. His description doesn't help. What is this????
http://www.ebay.com/itm/131740073082?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:ITPurchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network

 

I'm going to learn something today. I can feel it...

 

I was going to say Horrible... The printing is atrocious. Nope the printing is tight, look at the 6 in one of the other pictures... horrible horrible pictures.

 

Pre prototype?

 

Obviously a prototype of a service dial

 

More like a prototype of a fake dial.

 

The most important question is why would you want this?

 

The 3oo printing hurts my eyes

 

They forgot the dot between the two zeroes.

0.o

 

It is odd, as it is being sold by WatchCo. Wouldn't they be well positioned to know whether it is a fake or not and stand much to lose from selling fakes?

 

Well, they say this:

"This Dial is signed with the Manufacturers marking on the back which confirms its authenticity.
The dial is Signed: 151108 ZJ
Maker: ZJ Fluckinger.
There will be discussion as to weather this dial should actually exist. We know of 1 other dial the same that was delivered by Swatch Group via a well known wholesaler in about 2002.
We will stand by this dial and its Authenticity."

I'm not sure when marking on the back of a dial became the gold standard for the dial being authentic...a redial could have the original manufacturer's mark on the back still obviously. But looking at the photos they show of the back of the dial, I can't see any marks...maybe I'm not looking hard enough.

 

This dial was available few years ago on Omega Extranet with hefty price. The pattern is real.

 

I'm not an expert but I've never seen that dial before.

 

Here's a thread that discussed this dial on OF.
consensus seemed to be service dial or outright fake
https://omegaforums.net/threads/seamaster-165024-original-dial.19129/

 

This dial is in AJTT, which everyone said it was fake. Also has appeared in a few watches. Watchco has quite a few non-standard Omega dials for vintage Speedmasters, Constellations, Seamaster Chronmeters and others, and now this SM300. I don't know its origin, but I'm not certain it's a fake either and willing to give it the benefit of the doubt until there is something more concrete.

PS: Based on the font types and no Ts (the style appears consistent across all known examples), this dial would first begin in the late 90s, so it's definitely not original vintage.

 

Principle number 1: follow the money. Surely the whole purpose of 'faking' anything is to get close enough to the original to be able deceive and sell, in sufficient numbers, to make the whole venture worthwhile? The alternative approach would be to create a couple of 'ultra rare prototype' pieces of 'great value'. Neither of these scenarios apply in this case. The dial doesn't remotely resemble a SM300 and they haven't cropped up as complete, rare prototypes, complete with fake provenance. It appears that only a small number of unused dials have cropped up. This would not be a sensible business model that would deliver an economic return for a faker.

On the other hand, it seems perfectly reasonable to me that, in the development and production of any product, various design ideas would reach a sufficiently advanced stage to have a limited number of samples made up for evaluation. A likely explanation is that a sample batch was delivered for consideration and duly dismissed. At this point, both the watch maker and the dial maker would have had a small number of dials left over from an aborted design. Years later, someone at one or other facility, (most likely the dial maker) came across the forgotten items and decided to sell them to a wholesaler of obsolete watch parts.

Assuming the above, does that make them 'genuine'? Yes, but only in the sense that they were commissioned by and for Omega, rather than someone else using the trademark on something that had nothing to do with Omega. However, as there is no evidence that Omega ever assembled a single watch with this dial I would consider these to have only a limited 'curio' value. No doubt there have numerous samples of various dial designs, over the years, and probably most are best forgotten.

 

That's quite an ugly dial

 

This is a possible scenario, but not the only one nor I think it is likely. Design prototypes and samples surely exist, but I don't think they can get loose that easily.

Omega has had many dials made specifically for service that have never been assembled at the original production. This is well known with quite a few service dials (that usually vary a little from the original) for the Speedmaster line, but I have also seen service dials for Constellation, dress Seamaster as well as other lines. These dials were usually made many years or even decades after the original production of the watch, so it's understandable that differences exist: different suppliers, different production processes, different design guidelines or criteria, etc... This is also another possible scenario here (not counting local customized dials like the Thai Olympic Seamaster...).

It's also perfectly possible that this is a complete fake, even though I think it's not plausible that Omega would have accepted a fake dial in their official publication. Not bad quality, but I've seen better fake Rolex dials.

 

Looks like center one here?