Hello, I might have found a donor watch for my Constellation pie pan dog leg cal 561 case ref 168.005. The donor in question is dog leg cal 551 case ref 167.005, so basically a similar watch without date. The part I’m interested in the first place is the bezel. Can I assume that they are interchangeable, or are there variations that might make them incompatible? Thanks.
My watch. I suspect the bezel is not original. It fell off at one point and had to be glued back. The donor candidate. Take note of the (hmm) nice patina. Still I think there’s a chance that the bezel is useable, and the movement doesn’t look quite as bad as the dial to me. View attachment 755346
Your watch appears to be stainless steel and the donor watch is gold capped (gold bezel) so that's not going to be a good match.
Indeed it is! Thank you. How stupid of me. The photos are so bad that I didn’t notice. I assumed that the case numbers are different for steel, gold and gold capped, but apparently not.
There are different case contractors for Omega, such as SGR, HF and CB. Bearing the same ref 168.005 but they made different bezel ring. So SGR bezel ring cant fit HF or CB case and vice versa. So if your 168.005 is SGR, you need a SGR case as a donor.